I've found Amazon to have an absolutely insane meeting/tpm/top-down driven culture. Decisions can't be made without managers, tpms, etc getting on a call. I don't fit the archetype well. Is Microsoft like this too? I know in the ballmer era it was, but I'm curious if it's still like this. Is Microsoft an upgrade, in terms of culture, quality of life as a software engineer? I feel like I'm not shit enough at my job to worry about being PIP fodder, but I just want a place where I can build and not be bothered with lots of meetings.
TC is the only downside, everything else is better culture, remote policy, 401k match, PTO policy.
I had exactly opposite experience, Microsoft managers were mean and micromanaging, everything needed approval. At Amazon I am free to make decisions and own them (unfortunately forever as long as you stay in the team I guess ) .
Comp is bad, wlb + culture is much better.
my Amazon team didn’t interact with TPM’s much but had bad SDM’s, try switching orgs
Yeah that's a consideration I'm making too, just trying to weigh external options as well! I feel like my problem is that I'm not well suited to the SDE archetype my team wants me to fit into