Okay, I am sure that there are tons of these. But I wanted to try and understand why Google is almost always considered to be better than Amazon, and Amazon is generally considered to be sucky. But looking at a Google offer and here are some things: 1. Google does not seem to pay more than Amazon. Even looking at online salary data, the numbers are similar for a given yoe. 2. One key complaint about Google is that getting promoted can be quite hard. My personal experience and also anecdotally based on observing people around me, promos at Amazon (at least up to SDE3) are quite predictable. 3. Team switching seems to be easier at Amazon. No 1 year requirement and I have seen people change teams within months. Also, Amazon has tons more tech projects and variety. 4. Vacation policy is better at Amazon. It’s 10 days in your first year and 15 days in your second. Plus 6 days PTO and 3 days sick leave. At Google, it’s 15 days first year and 21 days 3rd year onwards. No PTO and unlimited sick leave. Ignoring sick leave, seems like with Amazon you get 21 days year 2 onwards. 5. Most teams I have seen at Amazon have good WLB, move quickly and individuals can have huge impact. Glassdoor ratings for SDE is at 4.0/5.0. Google is 4.4/5.0. Better but not by much. At google, people seem to have a problem with the pace of things being slow. So what gives? Why does Amazon get so much heat while google is seen as the best place to work? Does free food make so much of a difference? Or is there more to it?
Lol....Amazon ??? Shitty culture where they PIP anyone No perks...no food. Shitty 401k...no bonus Base cap so effectively even after a promo u don't see anything for 1-2 years. 5 or so holidays every year. I am sure u were at work this last Monday. U only get 5% of stocks in first yr and 15% in 2nd and most leave by 2nd year. Also Google can almost everytime beat Amazon comp even at a lower level.
I am not sure about the PIP thing but doesn’t Google have a way to push out bad performers? Perhaps the difference is that the hiring bar at Google is much higher than Amazon and google does not have many bad performers. As for perks, what do Googlers get besides free food? That’s a 5k/year value or something and probably not good for local businesses. Amazon gives out stock refreshers and annual bonuses. Yes, fewer holidays but we get 6 PTO which you don’t at google. Yes, the stock vesting is bad but actually Amazon gives a much better sign on bonus. Your first two years you get about 25k cash. If you look at the Amazon offer, the TC is the same over a 4 year period. Where do you get the comp data? I looked at Glassdoor and normalizing for location and yoe, it’s fairly similar.
Just search comps here on blind . Google T4 beats Amazon L6. Also what annual bonuses does Amazon give to SDEs and the stock refreshers only vest atleast 1 year out at Amazon , sometimes even 2 years out
Probably because of the work culture and not the "technical" Benfits. The common heat I've seen amazon gets is about how it treats her employees. Overly competitive, every person to themselves approach, blame culture and no room for mistakes. It could be that the rants are overly inflated but as a person who regularly interview people both from Amazon and Google to the company I work in, the stories why people leave are very different between these two. I'm sure there are bad and good teams in both companies (like any other company), but it seems the culture issues are leaning more towards Amazon than Google.
Amazon has toxic culture. Managers always try to manipulate you. Nobody cares about your interests. Everybody cares about promotion only, since technically majority of projects is a joke. Stock vesting is shit. Don’t expect to receive all your stocks, because after 2 years you will be pissed off from the company and try to move. Promotion to SDE3 is a political game.
Out of curiosity how manager in AMZN manipulate employee?
For example, 1) constantly giving false promising, while you understand that it never happens. 2) threatening you by Pip to make you worked on the project which he needs to deliver and nobody wants to take it because it is crap. 3) Constantly putting fake deadline to make you worked just harder without any reason.
Dude why do you still work at Amazon? If your experience is soo bad you should at least consider switching teams? AWS has been pretty solid for me, would definitely recommend.
I am leaving Amazon. I got offers to FB and Google. I switched team twice. No luck, but partially because there are not too many options in my location. On positive side, I like fast moving culture and people
Congrats! Where did you decide to go?
Refresh is definitely not as good as Google I think. WLB is better in Google in general. Some teams in Amazon have too many operations/on-call Amazon also has less holidays 401k is bad as well😔
OMG you consider 10 days in your first year GOOD? Is the US just really bad because that sucks. We start people in europe around 24 days and it often expands the longer you stay. Probably helps that its all legally defined by the government.
Probably also why you get paid half as much
True but the cost of living is also significantly less here too (and the work environment is pretty chill for the most part as well)
I'm from Amazon, my experience at Google is miles ahead of my time at Amazon. Pay is much higher if you get a competing offer. Also most of the recent high comp at Amazon is due to stock appreciation. Another thing to consider, during my 3 years at Amazon I never saw anyone from Google there, but at least 8 people from my org moved to Google.
This. I had a colleague from Google who run from Amazon after 6 months.
Lol very true. I have seen 2-3 folks leave for Google. Never met someone who previously worked at Google over at Amazon.
My team has several former FBers and Googlers.
Right and thinking about it a bit more, this is not a fair comparison. Of course more people move from Amazon to Google in Seattle. Seattle has 10s of thousands of engineers most of them got their first jobs at Amazon and moved here, they will eventually look elsewhere and Google will be high on their list. Google has much fewer employees to switch out in the first place. Relocation is likely a barrier so the number of people willing to move from MVC to Seattle is small.
Who gives a shit .. both companies have candidates vying to join them
The free food in Google is less salty than the paid food in Amazon