Pros
I work in the AWS division as a Cloud Support Engineer and I have never seen a smarter group of engineers. A huge amount of employees here have masters or higher level education, so even the people in lower level positions are experts in something you probably arent. This provides an amazing learning environment and I feel like my career has progressed more quickly by being able to learn from the best. There has been significant room for promotion from within based on merit, and the requirements for such are clearly defined. I have not felt like politics played a part in the decisions which is always refreshing. I have been able to prove my value through visible milestones and have been recognized accordingly. It has also been possible to choose the direction and teams I wished to move forward with. A high emphasis is placed on skill development and cross team training which helps with lateral and upward mobility as well. Finally, I feel like what I do has a real and global impact. I work with some of the largest companies in the world as well as amazon retail, and Ill occasionally hear about things I was a part of in the news. I would not have had these kinds of opportunities at a smaller company.
Cons
Theres just a vending machine in the break room, snacks are not provided. They also do not cater lunches. I guess its fine but I do miss that from my previous employer. They give out stock which is great, but it vests over time and they claim its part of your total compensation which is the number they use for everything. If the stock went up, well your total compensation for this year is now higher so theyll use that as a reason to not give salary raises. I don't love this because obviously the stock market is volatile and the times you can gain access to that stock are limited. They claim the opposite would be true if the stock went down but that hasn't really happened in the last 3-4 years so its hard to say how that would work out. Its hard to complain too much about all the stock I have being too valuable though.