Waiting for the post- holiday party to start, might as well write a post.
Amazon has been good to me. Learned a lot in two years, and got promoted 1 year in. Met awesome people, had unlimited booze access, and watched a ridiculous amount of YouTube and twitch at my desk.
In many ways, AMZN reminds me of college. The scale and ambition are inspiring. The anonymity is crushing and liberating. The people are generally smart, though social skills and manners vary widely. It's the only company I've worked where I felt so empowered and in control of my own success. Almost to the point where you wonder if you're not taking advantage of the boundless opportunities available.
All that said, it feels way too reliant on good management. For a company that espouses leadership, I haven't met many great ones, mgrs or otherwise. I've seen a large team die a slow death after losing a sr mgr, as the remaining L5s struggled to fill the power void. The sdes focus too much on promotracker instead of business needs, so tech debt continues to pile. Back filling is terribly slow, and more attractive groups within the org can poach candidates you interview, further delaying this process... the big picture is really lacking, at least on my team. Also, IT is super fucking slow on TT resolution. So is lab126. Jesus fuck. What are SLAs for you guys...
*shrug* Not my problem anymore.
For current Amazonians: good luck and stay strong. I hope the stock continues to rise and hq2 is somewhere pleasant. I also hope the Seattle housing market stays strong, since I bought a house. Lol
For everyone else: Amazon isn't that bad. It's actually pretty great sometimes, but the horror stories have validity too. It's a spectrum, and most teams have issues of some kind to sort through.
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I liken it to achievement farming in games. Once you level up, you immediately start farming your new quests. So many unqualified brown bags...
I'm glad engineers have paths forward, as I've definitely worked places with zero advancement opportunities. But I've seen a noticeable drop in ownership taken by teams since it went live.