Amazon reviews

Amazon Kindle is an ambitious, forward-thinking place to work. Amazon isn't just creating "me too" products, but is instead paving interesting ground with new initiatives. It's rare in industry to be able to work on V1 consumer electronics products at huge tech companies, whereas Amazon widely publicizes many job reqs for new "secret" projects. I worked on the FirePhone, which although it did not sell well, was still a valuable learning experience and one that has positioned me to more or less be able to get a job "anywhere" in tech. The work environment is fast paced, but this is somewhat expected as nobody joins a digital products org expecting to take it easy. The work environment is process-light, collaborative, and focused on results versus process. There's typically a sense of the team solving a challenging problem together and celebrating as a unit. Performance reviews are 360, so it's hard to get away with being a jerk to your team or trying to capture glory. Salaries are great here. Amazon uses a base + RSU's model to determine total comp, so consider the entire package versus base salary. RSU's can be a significant portion of comp, and Amazon stock has been traditionally on the rise. The engineering leadership org is expected to be highly technical as well as effective as managers. There's no room for "high level" leaders: my VP is probably one of the most technically gifted people I have ever worked with. Unlike in some companies where you may have to dumb down presentations the further up the chain you go, at Amazon you'll often find that senior leadership exceeds your own technical bar. Overall, every company has its pros and cons of course, but the main appeal of coming to Amazon Kindle is the opportunity to work on something big that you'll be able to actually ship in a fairly short timeframe, and it's something that will often find its way to your friends and family. Amazon offers a great tangible experience shipping a product, and is a valuable resume builder.

Good programming knowledge builds in Amazon