Amazon Lab126 Senior Software Development Engineer reviews

- A very political backstabbing company. Seriously, you have to learn to how to curry favor and build little pods of political power. If you don't, it doesn't matter how good your work is. Everything is about politics at Amazon. - Compensation model screws you over if the stock does well. This one is hard to explain, because nobody else does it this way. If the stock from a previous grant does well, it gets counted against you in later years. Let's say you got 400 shares at $100 a share (example numbers). You have an awesome year, get a great rating, etc, and the stock doubles to $200 a share! Great! Except the HR people have calculated your "target compensation" for the stock appreciating 15% year over year. You would have gotten share counts of 20, 60, 160, 160 after years 1, 2, 3, 4. Let's look at year 3. HR assumes 15% year over year, so a share price of ~$152.09 for 160 shares, or $24,334. Maybe they have you pegged for $30,000 of "target" stock compensation. If you're anything other than perfectly timed, your first year of review won't count. You get jack. But let's say you came in at review time, so you have a one year lead. At a "target" of $30,000 of stock at year 3, they would give you another 37 shares to get you to 197 shares vesting in year 3. But the stock went up to $200/share. So they figure a continued 15% appreciation year over year, and they assume that the new 3 year price is $264.5/share. Taken against the 160 shares you already have banked from your signing bonus, they figure you'll be getting $42,320 after year 3, which is more than your "target". So what do you get for your first annual bonus in RSU's vesting after year 3? Nothing. That's right. Nothing. You get nothing because you're "already hitting your target compensation with previous grants." The only thing you get is the potential that, if the stock doesn't do great or you don't get a stellar review, you'll be staring a huge pay cut in the face. It's hard to grasp, because it's so stupid. If the stock goes down, you obviously lose. If the stock goes up, Amazon takes credit for the price at vesting, not at grant time. What a bunch of jerks. - Senior management in Seattle is stupid. All of these broken incentives and backstabbing come from Seattle policies and mismanagement of Lab126. You will feel like a misunderstood subsidiary being managed into the ground by know-nothing jerks who think they walk on water. - The products are embarrassing. Fire phone? Echo Tap? $50 tablets that seem like a good idea until you use them? Try explaining to your friends and family why you work on products that you yourself don't use or recommend. - Virtually impossible to climb unless you are willing to play political games. Everything is about trading favors, and you have to be willing to throw good engineering away to get ahead. It will suck your soul out of you.

As with any job, your manager can make or break your experience. I started with a great manager. Great technical skills and great people skills. He left the company and now I'm stuck with someone who's technical skills are a bit out of date and his people skills are non-existent. My work-life balance was really good with my first manager; he strongly supported a balance and taking time for yourself and training. My new manager would rather have us at the office from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., so individuals have to push back to defend their work-life balance.