Why does Amazon PM get so much flak here?
I got an offer for L6 PM-T at Amazon. TC 310k, YoE 4 post mba, Alexa on-the-go team, coming up with new 1st party experiences and APIs to enable 3rd party experiences for assistant outside of home. Trying to learn more about Amazon and whether to take it over a role at MSFT that pays 20% less. However 90%+ of posts here simply say "PIP lol." I see a couple people liking it in comments, but quite little. I know it's not F/G/App/Snap tier, but is it so bad? Consider: + The learning is good: Do actual strategic and analytics driven PM work, not just execution, learn to polish your product ideas and pitch. + The products can be good: Work on consumer facing products, often innovative or interesting ones and launch to 1-10M+ users or more. There's not any other tech companies which take generalists and let them work on a impactful products. + Salary is quite solid, at least for PM-T. Their stock grant does seem to indicate most people will leave before Y3, but cash bonus Y1/Y2 certainly offsets it. + Career trajectory is good; if you can't see yourself moving up fast on your current team, you have a reasonable path in 2 years (maybe less) to Google/FB/Snap/etc or a more senior role at a startup In comparison how bad are the downsides? - WLB isn't ideal 50-60 hrs week seems common; but then again, many PM jobs seem to require this much, so why not put in time when in 20s or 30s. - Culture cutthroat: I could sense this from the interviews that it's very sink or swim. But how does it affect you as a PM day to day and how different is it to other companies? - PIP: Should really only affect bottom 5-10% so overall maybe 15-20% of all PMs will get PIPed out; yet based on Blind it feels like 50% of people are being PIPed. Are only the bad/unlucky PMs here? Either way, it's hardly the end of your PM career. - Advancement limited internally, but as noted, you can take your strategic, customer-facing PM experience to a lot of other companies and get a title and pay bump So which senior PM/PMT actually like their amazon role? What does it take to do well and enjoy amazon? #productmanager #amazon
Remember the Yelp review theory. People with bad experiences tend to actively write bad reviews. Also, this is an anonymous forum so people like to troll a lot around here. I have been here for some time now and can tell you it's very team dependent and PIPs don't show up out of thin air. You have to consistently f up to get there.
I’m a PMT at Amazon. I don’t dislike my role and you’ve got a solid read on the pros and cons. The biggest downside not mentioned is that if you’ve been at other top tier tech companies it’s just not up to par, especially with the comp philosophy and relatively flat stock. So much so that assuming some of the offers I’m working on pan out, I’ll be gone after a fairly short stint. In terms of doing well, learn the writing style and develop a thick skin. Understand that Amazon isn’t really a caring place/somewhere that really makes you feel overly comfortable or good about yourself and that unless you really jive with the culture, it’s likely a stepping stone to elsewhere. It’s a learning experience and it’s a mercenary culture, so get what you need out of it and bounce whenever that arrangement is no longer benefitting you and don’t feel an ounce of regret for doing so. I’ll also point out another perk. Amazon makes moving teams stupid easy, and there’s very few companies in the world with Amazon’s breadth. Where else could you PM a talking box, vapourware satellite internet or Cheeto boxes? All jokes aside if breadth of experience or things to try is your jam, there’s few better places.
Come to Microsoft when you're 40. Or never.
Is the question whether to choose Amazon or Msft? Choose Amazon!
Amazon PMTs are well respected and sought out for. Lot to learn as a PMT that likely hard to learn elsewhere. Worth taking a shot that early in the career. Spend few years at Amazon and then leave for more money and better wlb.
OP can you post your salary breakdown please? Base, stock, bonus?
Having worked at both companies, smart play would be to get PM-T experience at Amazon (1-2 years). You can always join MS later (and they'll likely match your comp at Amazon or increase it. MS level will also be higher with the experience you'll have).
ex-Amazon, in better place today @ MSFT Generally I would say, run away from Amazon, get to MSFT with such difference. However, considering your experience level and willingness to work long hours, I probably would take Amazon for the learnings and growth, planning to move to MSFT whenever I get tired.
4 YOE in total? and you got an L6 PMT? that's a very solid offer.
Op here, 4 years post mba, 9 yoe total. My pre- mba is not super relevant