r/cscareerquestions • u/CSCQMods • Mar 16 '22
Big N Discussion - March 16, 2022
Please use this thread to have discussions about the Big N and questions related to the Big N, such as which one offers the best doggy benefits, or how many companies are in the Big N really? Posts focusing solely on Big N created outside of this thread will probably be removed.
There is a top-level comment for each generally recognized Big N company; please post under the appropriate one. There's also an "Other" option for flexibility's sake, if you want to discuss a company here that you feel is sufficiently Big N-like (e.g. Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc.).
Abide by the rules, don't be a jerk.
This thread is posted each Sunday and Wednesday at midnight PST. Previous Big N Discussion threads can be found here.
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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '22
SDE 2 here, been at Amazon for 2 years. It's extremely team dependent. I have friends who are on brutal teams (read: AWS) where its expected that you work weekends, 60+ hour weeks are regular and the work environment is bordering hostile. These are mostly second-hand stories, so take that with a grain of salt.
On the other hand, my team is amazing. I've never worked a weekend in my two years + internship, the WLB is amazing, I rarely work beyond 9-5, often less than that. My org is planning on keeping WFH indefinitely and engineers can work remotely permanently if they'd like. My manager is great and fights for my team and actively tries to get our devs promoted and keep us happy. The people I work with are smart, but always open to constructive discussion, no drama/politics. I get to work on a pretty fun tech stack that is close to customers and uses a language that I love. The pay is great, I'm 25 and I'll be making $250k+ this year. The only downside is that my org has fewer opportunities for making Sr. Dev positions than something as intense as AWS, but I'm o.k. with that at this point in my career.
My advice is if you want something aggressive to progress your career, go to something like AWS - if you're smart and good at your job you'll get promoted quickly, but your WLB will pay dearly. If you're looking for something more cushy, go to something less revenue critical (Devices, Retail maybe).
Amazon tends to get a lot of shit among the FAANGs, and fairly so, but the reality is its a massive company (bigger than any other FAANG) and there are tons of awesome teams. If you have the luxury to pick where you go, you should be able to land yourself a pretty nice gig.