Amazon’s mission is to be Earth’s most customer-centric company where people can find and discover anything they want to buy online. Amazon’s evolution from website to e-commerce and publishing partner to development platform is driven by the pioneering spirit that is part of the company’s DNA. The world’s brightest technology minds come to Amazon to research and develop new technologies that improve the lives of our customers: shoppers, sellers, content creators, and developers around the world.

Because that’s what being Earth’s most customer-centric company is all about, and it’s still Day 1 at Amazon.Amazon’s headquarters are based in Seattle, Washington, United States -additional offices, fulfillment centers, customer service centers, data centers, and development centers are located across the globe. Amazon is an Equal Opportunity-Affirmative Action Employer – Minority / Female / Disability / Veteran / Gender Identity / Sexual Orientation

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I find the culture to be broken from the highest levels down. Fear is the primary motivator of getting people to accomplish tasks. Tasks are done quickly and poorly, and the company values (all of them) are frequently used to browbeat people when the results are not as expected. Junior employees are relegated to the edge of rooms in meetings they are required to attend, and told not to speak unless spoken to. Women are treated poorly by other employees in meetings – example: no eye contact, interaction between male employees even when the male employee is junior to the female employees. As a manager, my employees would call me in the middle of the night crying because of the abusive emails my manager would send, cc-ing the whole team. The fear or retaliation is extreme, and employees trying to move around the company are penalized with poor performance reviews – this happened twice when I tried to hire internal people who had previously had outstanding reviews. Employees are harassed by management and forced on performance plans for over the most trivial of reasons – one bad status report, vocal and facial tics, etc. Very disappointing experience, and when you see VPs screaming at employees and storming out of meetings, you know the problems start at the top.

5 years ago
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Career Advancement

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I have worked nine times as a contractor for Amazon from 2010 – 2015. I have had several great managers and a couple of terrible managers. I think the biggest problems Amazon has are burnout, high turnover and artificial competition, and the people who survive to become senior managers, in general, have terrible personalities. They create a lot of issues for everyone underneath.

As a contractor, I was mostly protected from the politics and backstabbing senior managers. Amazon is a good company for a contractor, because of the high turnover, everyone is new and I never felt like the new kid on the block and I never felt out of place. They also gave me a chance in a new career change from Mechanical Engineering to Technical Writing.

I’ve been told that I am too nice to work for Amazon, and I think that’s true. I generally get along with my coworkers, I recognize bullying from my personal experience in 6th grade and I know how to circumvent that, and I want everyone to succeed. These are skills Amazon does not want in their employees.

I have had three excellent managers who’s senior management entirely destroyed them. One manager left after seven years at Amazon, because he was working seven days a weeks and leading three different teams for a year as a “temporary” manager. Another was mysteriously fired, probably for speaking her mind, after nine years. The last one, was a highly experience legal editor, who had just started at Amazon, and she made great plans for her team of contractors to make us more efficient. Then suddenly her managers took all of us away from her and lumped us with a larger group that was doing similar work. Except this group was poorly trained to do their work and we ended up fixing their mistakes.

Regarding turnover, I was told by a software engineer that the average software developer last nine months there. He was already burnt out by six. He said, he worked about 65 – 80 hours a week. My coworkers, who were hired directly by Amazon, generally left at 2 years; that was the minimum to keep their stocks. The biggest issue about the high turnover is that whole departments forget how to do something important. If you don’t put how to do your job in the company wiki page, it will be forgotten. Even if you take to the time to put that information in the wiki, it will probably be forgotten. One of my contracts was just to figure out how to do a task that was forgotten, because the employee who did it had left the team and wasn’t talking to us and the contractor who knew had left the company. While I was figuring out the task, a department that sent information for this task forgot how to do this. This task was one of those little things that was important to Amazon. I don’t understand why upper management believes that people leaving after nine months is a good thing to have, but they encourage it.

I’m glad I worked at Amazon as a contractor, but I wouldn’t has an employee. They do have a fair amount of female managers. My coworkers who were hired directly, were paid equally. There’s definitely male and female jobs, and people hired people who looked or acted like them. There’s definitely a lack of diversity of races and certainly nobody with obvious disabilities. There’s no on-site childcare. They do have breast pumping rooms and allow dogs.

5 years ago
Equal Pay

Career Advancement

Supportive Culture

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I have survived 5 years in tech at Amazon, where it is normal to have an entire development team – including manager – with less than one year at the company. Amazon does provide equal pay for the same role at the same level, but women and underrepresented groups are typically assigned one or two levels below where their performance indicates they should be. The promotion process is a joke – the easiest way to get a promotion at Amazon is to leave the company and come back after a year at a higher level. Burnout is not just common but *expected*. I work WITH amazingly brilliant people, and we work on interesting things, but the people we work FOR don’t care how their crazy demands impact people as long as the arbitrary deadlines are met.

4 years ago
Equal Pay

Career Advancement

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It claims to be the most customer centric company – and it might be- but it is at the cost of the employees.
The ground level employees are sweet and caring but as you rise through the ranks you start to realise that only the worst personality traits survive. I watched intelligent caring and resourceful managers become blank eyed and evasive within a year of working there.

I can honestly say I would not recommend to my worst enemy to work for Amazon.

Although- it is a learning experience – I learned more about bad management there than at any other company I worked in. I learned how to handle being bullied and what really matters in life – to stop trying to get ahead and just work on being happy.

I can’t honestly say if they pay was equal but it was extremely low for similar roles in other companies.

5 years ago
Equal Pay

Career Advancement

Supportive Culture

Family Friendly

Background: I joined as a Technical Product Manger after my MBA internship. I left Amazon after 1.5 years. Married with no kids during my time at Amazon.
Equal Pay: Neutral. Amazon’s pay structure is very equity heavy. For the Class of 2013 MBA recruits, Amazon offered the same package for all and had a take-it-or-leave-it policy. I have no data point on compensations beyond the initial offer.
Career Advancement: Assuming you are smart and competent, advancement is highly correlated with the hours you put in. Amazon has an up or burnout culture. The company expectation can be mapped to the following: 40hrs/week == a below average rating, 60hrs/week == Average.
Supportive Culture: No. You are on your own. Management and HR will all tell you you are responsible for your own career and problems. Management is there to manage the business. HR is there to protect management.
Family Friendly: No. Amazon is your one and only family when you join. Don’t join Amazon expecting work-life balance.

5 years ago

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