Amazon Software Development Enginner-|| reviews

Lots of management hires from outside the company recently; a recent trend is to crowd out engineers out of meetings. Not sure how it is going to impact the culture long term. Another big con is the compensation. Performance reviews and compensation revisions don't go hand-in-hand. Compensation change follows a really opaque process; with the end result being most pay hikes are paltry, even with great perf review scores. Only saving grace is the stock grant you get on joining and vests over 4 years. That is why so many people leave after 4 years - there is big drop in effective comp at the end of 4 years. In short, if you are joining Amazon, remember that you are basically negotiating salary for 4 years; not just the first year.

Too much politics, overwhelming work, no work life balance, extra burden of oncall which doesn't count into your weekly accomplish task, its like a side job that you have to take care without delaying your other tasks and projects.