Amazon Software Development Engineering reviews

Amazon is a very innovative company with never a dull moment at work. Management greatly encourages new ideas/technology, given that you can get some free time off your operational load (see below). The company has some of the smartest people around and provides awesome learning and career growth opportunities. If you ever wonder what does it take to keep a large scale distributed system working where the customer never even realizes the machinery behind amazon.com, you need to come work at Amazon. Great place to work at, learn some new stuff and have fun while doing it. Amazon totally rocks!

As a young Software Engineer, there aren't many places that will pay you like Amazon. The pay is very, very good. Figured I would get that out there up front. I have a good deal of freedom with my job, and with small exceptions, I haven't been overburdened with long hours, either. From talking with other employees from other teams, and reading these reviews, I think it is somewhat the luck of the draw with Amazon - because teams are very independant and decentralized, your experience with one team can be wildly different from another. Luckily, I believe I am on a very good one. Management has been great, in my experience. My manager is a coder/manager, so while he isn't the best project manager I've ever worked with, he works very hard to understand what is going on at a low level with the team, without micromanaging. I rarely have had to deal with upper management, and when I do, the experience has been positive. Work/life balance has also been good. My team is very understanding and somewhat liberal when it comes to giving time off when necessary. The schedule is also very flexible, we can come and go as we please, work from home when necessary, etc. Amazon's recruiting process brings in the best and brightest. I have yet to meet an SDE at Amazon tha I thought "slipped through the cracks" and didn't belong. Everyone at the company seems capable of contributing at a high level.