Working for Amazon Web Services

Celestein_sl said:

Pretty much one of the best companies you could work for.

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I don't know. Their Boston office is a revolving door. They treat their Engineers much like they treat their Warehouse people... like shit.

I have no idea but you should definitely hire me. I can get top secret clearance! And I have a Masters Degree and am not retarded!!!

Adebisi_sl said:

What's the position?

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Testing Amazon grocery foods.

Amazon isn't known for having a good work life balance. If that's your thing Amazon isn't your company.

afaik life working for amazon is crappy, the company is cheap (that's why they can sell really cheap) so while salary you'll be good, forget about any quirks like free coffee or services.

Obtenor_sl said:

afaik life working for amazon is crappy, the company is cheap (that's why they can sell really cheap) so while salary you'll be good, forget about any quirks like free coffee or services.

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Buddy is a dev at Amazon. This is definitely true. His words "Amazon treats developers as a necessary evil." Basically he thinks if they could axe developers they would.

Amazon's reputation in tech at least is a churn and burn shop. Hire tons of smart people, and burn them out in record numbers leading to huge turnover. They pay well, but hours can be tough. A lot of people are forced to wear pagers a week at a time with strict requirements on response time.

kudos_sl said:

Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon: Excerpt From ??~The Everything Store??T by Brad Stone - Businessweek

Great article about how their CEO thinks of employees and how the company works in general. They are the Wal-Mart of the internet.

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Pretty much. Gawker did a few articles/posts as well on how they treat their warehouse workers like incarcerated criminals. But that is how most fulfillment companies work these days. They are all about streamlining the fulfillment process to get to the bottom line. That is one of the reasons why if I can afford it, I will try to shop locally. Those incredibly low prices are too good to be true.

CnCGOD_sl said:

Amazon's reputation in tech at least is a churn and burn shop. Hire tons of smart people, and burn them out in record numbers leading to huge turnover. They pay well, but hours can be tough. A lot of people are forced to wear pagers a week at a time with strict requirements on response time.

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They make you wear pagers? I didn't even know they still made those!

Noodleface_sl said:

They make you wear pagers? I didn't even know they still made those!

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dude you can get anything on Amazon

I've known some people who worked at Amazon before fleeing elsewhere and my old CEO used to joke that Amazon employees were the easiest to recruit. Work/life balance has traditionally been bad, you frequently have to wear a pager and then have your personal life get interrupted even when you aren't at work, and the perks are nonexistant. Devs are viewed as a cost center and Amazon is a retail company at heart. The main advantages to Amazon are the pay isn't awful and it is close to downtown Seattle unlike Microsoft which is a pain to get to if you don't live on the east side of the water. If are you are new to Seattle though, Amazon isn't a bad place to start and then you can look around for a job at one of the other 2390482390432 tech companies in the area.

We had a software engineer return to us after being employed by Amazon for little over a year. He didn't go into any real details, but he seemed to imply they aren't very organized. And we are tiny little potatoes compared to Amazon, so I was surprised he'd give up a career with them.