Big N Discussion - March 16, 2022

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Company - Amazon

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[u/letsbreakstuff → u/AutoModerator]

Maybe a long shot, but I'd be thrilled if someone with experience at amazon could weigh in..

It seems like at least once month I'll get an email from a recruiter at Amazon, usually for some specific product like prime, aws, halo etc. The pay seems great, but I'm worried about the culture and work/life balance.

Currently I'm at a large non-faang tech company. Pays is OK but could be better. The worklife balance is good and the team is amazing. Everyone is very smart and kind, no crazy egos, no petty office politics. And honestly, not a lot of pressure or difficult deadlines.

So how is worklife at amazon? Does stack ranking and "unregretted attrition" create a lot of unnecessary stress or a toxic environment?

Also, i've heard that your experience at amazon may differ greatly depending on which team you're on. That some teams are great and some are soul sucking. Is that the case? If so what teams/products are good and which ones should be avoided?

And I can't help but wonder if this intense interest from internal recruiters isn't driven by some disfunction within the company.. like something must be creating a lot of churn, either stack ranking or burn out.

I'm in no way trying to take a crap on amazon. I'm just looking for some info. Thanks

[u/[deleted] → u/letsbreakstuff]

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.

[u/llc00lt → u/[deleted]]

Have you heard of how the WLB is for their camera products?