Does the same complaints we hear about working at AWS (wlb, toxic culture, etc) apply if you are a L7 SWE? TC 320k
Depends on where in AWS.
Which teams are better to avoid?
It's really hard to know given how big Amazon/AWS is, even as an insider. This is something people always forget (I'm guilty of that too prior to joining) but Amazon has almost 1 million employees. That is a lot of people and a lot of teams. It would be better to reach out to ppl who is already working on the team you're joining directly. Or, like what I did, join, and switch after once u learn more about the company/org (it'll also be easier to research in potential orgs u want to join and schedule coffee chats with the ppl on those teams internally). Also don't be surprised of some bureaucracy if u come from a small-medium sized company.
As mad6 said, the place is huge. There are pockets of terrible, and pockets of amazing. If you are a good judge of character, you’ll find your way into a good team. Nothing is ever guaranteed. Amazon is the only place I’ve been where I’ve seen toxic management dealt with instead of being allowed to fester. Ymmv.
As a Principal Engineer, it’s your job to contribute to the toxic culture. Shit rolls downhill. Let the SDMs deal with the WLB.
Not sure I get it. What's the difference between managers and ICs at this level.
As a Principal Engineer, you dont do oncall, you generally report to a Director or VP with a 50-500 person org, and are responsible for technical leadership for the org. It's like being a CTO for a small company, in that you might write some code here or there, but mostly you are leading design and architecture for the large org-scale projects and guiding senior engineers across teams and coordinating cross-org technical efforts. The principal engineer role is almost like a different job entirely from an L5/L6 SDE. Of course, if you are in a toxic org that job can still suck, but it is unlikely to suck in the same way as an L4 or L5 or even L6 SDE job might suck.
What Amazonians are saying here is what I heard in my interviews at AWS. I was given some very honest stories about how some of them were under awful management at times but go out and are really happy with this team. Be sure to drill each interviewer on WLB to find out what THAT team is really like. Also good to hear how you can move if you need to but I always worry about the "out of the frying pan into the fire" situation.
Can’t get out of Microsoft principal cushy lifestyle huh?
How is Oracle treating you?
L o l