Amazon Software Development Engineer II reviews

3.6

58% would recommend to a friend

(954 total reviews)
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Andrew Jassy

19% approve of CEO

53% positive business outlook

Software Development Engineer II employees have rated Amazon with 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 954 company reviews on Glassdoor. This indicates that most Software Development Engineer II professionals have a good working experience there. Amazon is rated in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) by Software Development Engineer II professionals compared to other employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

954 reviews
5.0
Sep 21, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amazon is packed full of opportunities. There's plenty of space to grow both personally and technically and challenges abound. The real beauty of the place is that individual groups and teams are given nearly full reign in how they operate as long as they produce the desired results. This level of freedom means that those teams which require strict SDLC methodologies to meet high availability requirements can apply those, while teams who do not require as strict of a methodology are also free to explore agile approaches. There are lots of available tools for working in certain ways, but teams are not required to use those tools and are welcome to use others of their own choosing. This freedom keeps the work environment fresh and interesting, even as Amazon has grown into a truly large company. The other aspect of Amazon that is truly rewarding is the "ownership" attitude that is fostered. Not code ownership, per se, but rather company ownership. Any employee is encouraged to think about how the project they are doing improves customer experience, drives down costs, and overall improves the business. Anyone can say "I don't think that this is a good customer experience," and people tend to listen.

Cons

In short: Chaos. We haves it. I've personally witnessed complete priority shifts take place in 24 hours. If you are the kind of person who will be upset if the project you were working on for the past 2 weeks (or months) suddenly gets tabled in favor of some super ultra high priority mission, you won't like it here. Personally, this doesn't bother me. Both the tabled project and the new one will generally be interesting, and if the tabled project had a real business need behind it, it will come back around to completion one day down the road :).

3.0
Sep 5, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amazon is a great brand. If you tell someone you work at Amazon, outside of Seattle at least, you will inevitably hear, "Oh, I love Amazon!"

Cons

It is a very high entropy work environment, and so far I have a pretty dim view of the lower level managers. It doesn't seem like there's much opportunity for professional growth. The professional culture is mostly male and alpha-geek-centric.

3.0
Aug 12, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good brand recognition; it will work for your resume. You'll also get to work on some interesting projects and around really bright people. If you have a great idea and plenty of motivation, you may get a chance to champion your work.

Cons

Everyone makes a 24x7 commitment to their work and there is tremendous pressure. You will burn out; management is trained to recognize burn-out and offer you various forms of time off depending on the seriousness of the matter. Leadership also has a tendency to dabble in the weeds a bit; I've worked with Senior VPs who felt it necessary to review APIs and database models, mine metrics reports for flaws and question seating arrangements.

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