Amazon is a great company to start at.
Pros
-Competitive offers (not the best, but still well above average) -Many of the teams have a similar feel to a start up -It is in Seattle (I have mixed feelings about this) -The people here are smart and motivated -Has a kind of "hands off" management style, at least where I work. The mentality is that as long as I get my work done appropriately, all is good. -You can go from team to team, department to department, and continuously learn new things. You can jump from low end server management to high end app development for example. -The company is going places both from a financial sense (have you looked at their stock recently and its trend?) and a technology sense -The teams are generally kept small and for my team at least, leads to better communication
Cons
-With some teams, work life balance is horrible. This is not all teams however, mostly the ones that manage the website directly and are responsible for keeping various services up and running. I have seen it both ways. -It is in Seattle (I have mixed feelings about this) -It can be difficult at times to get recognized for your hard work even if you go above and beyond the call of duty (please note I have not personally experiences this. Rather, it is a conclusion I have reached based off of my interactions with others and what I have seen) -Team culture and work life balance varies from "I want to get out of here" to "I absolutely love it here and can't imagine myself anywhere else" I understand that this happens in many different companies, but I wish Amazon would work more to normalize this spectrum.
