Amazon reviews

I was with Amazon 3 years. Amazon is loyal to their customers and down right disrespectful to their employees. After 9 months on my team, I knew Amazon wasn't for me. My first year with Amazon was pure chaos. I was there almost 4 years and my team had a re-org at least 4 times. I had four managers within the 3years I was with Amazon. I counted 18 people who were hired when I was hired and left within the first 2 years. I have read other reviews about Amazon and they are spot on. I am one of the many that was places on a PIP because my manager had to pick someone. I was never informed that my performance was below par nor was I informed that my performance was being going to be evaluated against my peers. The metrics used to evaluate my performance were never presented to me, nor was I aware of what elements of my daily work, project work, and goals counted towards my overall performance. Although I was apart of a team I was basically an individual contributor and supported my programs alone. No level of expectations were ever set, I had no clue what to expect from my end of the year review. I achieved all of the requirements of my PIP and survived another year. Then after 6 months my new manager put me on a PIP again because they were concerned that I was not behaving like a level 5 employee. I left Amazon before I even found another job, it was that bad for me. I rather deal with no benefits (which weren't that great any way) than deal with scrutiny I dealt with. I worked hard to get to the salary I was receiving at Amazon but it just wasn't worth it. When I was struggling with my relationship with my manager I went to HR to seek advice. The SR. HR rep said, well since your on a PIP my only recommendation is to seek employment outside of Amazon. Ones success at Amazon is based upon who their manager. It is a popularity contest and if you don't play the game right, you lose.

The most annoying part of working at Amazon is how people don't matter at all in this company. You are a number. No one will give a damn about training you, growing you, advancing you. What you do is completely irrelevant. You will be passed over by the cronies of your newly hired director or VP (mistresses, drinking buddies, soccer team mates, etc.). Reviews and interviews are passive-aggressive-driven beauty contests: for your success it is much more important to be "nice" with everyone and not rub anyone the wrong way rather than actually getting something done. Management is all hired from outside, almost never promoted from inside. The attrition is ridiculous also because of that. The pay and the benefits are such that those able to, leave amazon as soon as the all-cash compensation period is over, especially with a stagnant or declining stock. Those who stick around, tend to be those that cannot go anywhere else, and it shows. In my career I have never seen so many incompetent morons with the title of director or higher, spending all their time and energy trying to defend their position rather than get work done. In two years I had the team produce 100x more lines of useless planning documents that no one read or cared about than actual code. The few great people I have worked with were all in the intermediate to low levels and were all leaving or looking around. The technology stacks I have worked on were all put together with tape and wire. More than 90% of the resources were spent trying to get the stratified hacks of ten years to keep working rather than creating something new (and it was a mission critical system). The technical leadership is the division was non-existing. There may be some pocket of excellence elsewhere in the company, but after I have seen the shambles the supposed core business is in, I ran for the door at the first opportunity.