Rewarding, but compensation not sustainable.
Pros
* The most practical experience I have ever gained in any job. One year here is equivalent to three years industry average experience in your discipline. * Amazon only hires the best of the best. You will be surrounded by people who are SMEs and know much more than you. Your learning potential is infinite at AWS. * AWS's managers are required to pass a high tech bar for the position. As an engineer you will speak the same language as them and can understand each others issues very clearly. I have not met a manager at AWS that was not a powerful leader and excellent mentor/career coach. * Ability to move horizontally with no opposition. If you do not like where you are or lost interest in your team's responsibilities you will be able to move to another team with no resistance. AWS is very open to enabling you to work where you are happy. * No on-call. Enough said.
Cons
* Compensation. AWS and Amazon are known across the industry much like Google in having below than average salary. Yearly reviews are typically a COLA adjustment of ~2% salary. Promos are typically a flat 10% bump in salary unless you negotiate, and even then it is not much more. * HR is incentivized to give the lowest possible offer, even if it is below the average of your team with equivalent work experience. This shady business tactic is built all around hopes that colleagues will not share their salary details with each other. * Excessive turnover. The average tenure here is ~1.5 years. It is hard to find someone that stays in this position for longer due to the tediousness of the roles or burnout experience from customer engagements.
