A small appreciation for Amazon

Joined Amazon ~5 years back as a L4 SE. 2016 passed out of college, got placed in one of the mass recruiters (Accenture) with a TC of 3.5 LPA. 8 months from then (2017), i cleared the usual 4 rounds Amazon interviews and joined as an SE, TC 10 LPA... 2018, promotion in same level (maybe not called as promotion but for me it was..) TC 11.2 LPA ; 2019 got into SDE role, TC 13 LPA. 2020 regular hike TC 14.5. End of 2020, became SDE2, TC 42 LPA. Currently SDE2, TC 48 LPA. Well the TC highlights were just because Blind needs it. The real point starts here..... In Accenture i was filling in Excel sheets and doing everything other than CS engineering. When i joined Amazon, I was Jon Snow (I knew nothing). But, the team which i joined in, i don't have words to thank them. I bugged my seniors for help, silly questions, career advice, understanding business, coding and what not. And i never heard a NO from them. In the initial 1-2 years, i never worked on a sev2 alone, and not just me, no one in the team worked on critical things alone. Everyone always had a backing hand, which was truly voluntary and never forced.... It brought in me a true sense of ownership, mentorship, and all the ships which helped me sail through my career. I can proudly and thankfully say my seniors turned me to a decent engineer and more importantly they gave me values, friendship and taught me to cherish the work we do. There were many such incidents where we worked our a** off, but it never felt like a burden. We laughed, we gossiped, we travelled....ahhh good times..... Times changed.. teams changed... managers changed... last year I was going through a financial crisis. I got 2 weeks off, 3 months of advance salary. No questions asked. My manager even offered me money from his pocket. I was never an emotional kind of person, but when people left teams/company there were tears in my eyes. And honestly I was not the only one with wet eyes. Well the point i am trying to make is, Amazon has been good to me. And by Amazon i dont mean Bezos or Jassy or some HR, No. Amazon to me is my teammates, my org, my managers. Somethings are under their control, some not. I dont mind, thats life.. We cant control everything.. I might have had the similar or even better experiences in any other company as well. But in reality i didnt, all those people who i met, who polished me who made me what i am..... all of them, were from Amazon ! By any chance if you have made it to the end of this post, let me share the reason behind it. I am new to Blind and after reading all the posts for Amazon, i realized this is not the Amazon i joined. I dont question/counter peoples' experience with Amazon, i understand it would have been worst for them. But to me it was different, I just wished to put mine. Thanks ! #officelife #amazon