Pros
-Good brand to have on CV -Working with really smart people in every department -Interesting projects to work on al the time -Quick decision making and pace to work -Customers treated incredibly well
Cons
-Bruising culture - One of the Amazon leadership principles is "vocally self critical". In a scorecard if a person does 9 things out of 10 well they will be expected to talk about their failure. Whilst this drives focus, it is tiring/sapping and demoralising. Success is not celebrated. If you are doing 5 things out of 10 well expect to feel pain. As such bullying tactics are common place as senior leaders are expected to demonstrate "backbone" -Work life balance is zero - Amazon is a 24 hour a day 7- days a week business business so you will find it hard not to do the same -Admin - In addition to fantastic strategic projects expect a large amount of your work to be inane admin which could easily be automated - outsourced. Amazon does buy software tools, rather it develops its own. Some are good but most are clunky at best so expect to need to pick up the slack. -Promotions - The bar for promotions is incredibly high. Expect it to take 3 years of working weekends, unless you have friends in the right places Advice to prospective employees - If you are lucky enough to be offered roles by some of the big tech companies, choose Amazon last. If you are offered a role by Amazon, take it, go in with your eyes open. Make sure you get what you want and be ready to have a plan B up your sleeve. In my department of 150 average tenure was 13 months