Good work-life balance, but politics and average pay - Software Development Engineer (SDE) II Amadeus Employee Review

Great Company culture and benefits!

Lots of things going on at once so you need to be able to self manager and balance multiple projects.

Technology Stack, Learning resources, Benefits

Over management, Very difficult to get things done due to complex and overbearing change control procedure and tools. This was one of the best jobs in the world about 7 years ago. It was very stable and the teams were very stable and cohesive. The last few years it has become another corporate nightmare. Too many managers, too much talk about work and not enough time to work. Every year they just up and change things up, right when we almost adapted and overcame the change they made last year. None of the changes are for the good of the product or the way we work. All the changes are made to the benefit of management, how they report numbers and costs, or to reflect some shift in messaging which only works and looks good on paper, but is actually a negative and creates strife, confusion and poorly motivated and un-cohesive teams. Its a shame because it was the exact opposite when I started there. In the last few years they had us train full time offshore employees in lesser developed countries to do our jobs. In Q3 2025 they laid off 1500 senior positions in North America, Canada and Europe and all new job postings were for offshore locations. I saw them kill very successful products that were very profitable and kept customers under our umbrella. They overspent on the move to the cloud, missing forecasts horribly, against the advise of senior architects and engineers. In the end, the products are no better, less stable (despite fabbed up KPI's) and the people who built and supported them from the inception have all been let go, or encouraged to take a RIF. Theres people in a foreign country who have no idea how the end users of the products need them to work and be supported. So when once you used to get a live person when you called, now you get the same AI phone tree as Verizon, and when you finally get a person on the line, its not likely they will solve your issue as quickly as they once did. Sadly, they are not unique and are just part of the giant race to the bottom. If you are new to the corporate workforce, go ahead and apply. You will learn a lot, and you will be well prepared for what the corporate life will throw at you during your career. If youre mid or late career, run, dont walk.