Pros
- Customer focus you will remember for life - mostly because it's tattoo'd on you. - You learn to write. A lot. More than you've ever written in your entire life. Combined.
Cons
- Horrible managers - super passive aggressive, claim to be numbers focused but some how latch on to the worst on their team and PIP all others - Expect to be PIP'd - PIP means performance improvement program before you are fired. This is done with the expectation that you will eventually quit or be fired. Never saw one person make this through. - Compensation was a joke - Whatever you think of the compensation, it's a lie. Not a fudging - an outright lie. For example, let's say you are supposed to be paid $80k in salary, $20k in bonus, and are given $200k in stock options over 4 years. -- First, your bonus. You're going to get that over 1 year, paid 1/12 per month. This will become relevant in a minute. -- Second, your total comp. According to the above, you're now making $100k. Let's say the stock goes up by 20% - win, right? WRONG. Your bonus NEXT year will be reduced so that you're not making more than $100k. So if you get a bump (to $85k) and your next years stock is now worth $60k ($200k/4 + 20%), your next year's bonus will be lower (call it $10k). Congrats! -- Vesting - the schedule is obscene. 5% the first year, 15% the second year, 20% each half year after. This differs from most tech companies which vest 25%/year. -- Now let's loop all the way back to your getting fired - remember that (point two all the way at the top?) - Because you're SO likely to be shown the door (50% of all first year amazon employees are 'managed out'), you won't see 100% of your bonus AND you won't see more than 5% of your stock (if that). YAY.