Always interesting to see comments from people who worked at Amazon. I did a stint, and I hated it, but I am always trying to get a read on if I was just unlucky, or if I can fairly draw a broader conclusion about Amazon overall.
I was actually working for a company that had been acquired by Amazon several years earlier, and I was working on a non-feature team. So on the one hand, maybe my bad experience was that it wasn't "Amazon proper," or maybe the lesson is "be sure to work on software the visibly provides profit and avoid working on software that merely keeps the company going as a viable venture."
OTOH, we were pretty well integrated with Amazon at this point. A lot of people from Amazon proper had transferred here, because it had a reputation as having a much better culture. The vesting schedule was much better, for instance. So maybe I just picked the wrong team -- there's probably something to the "avoid working in a cost-center" lesson.
Then again, there's so many stories of people who have had a bad experience, that being "unlucky" seems to happen more often than seems optimal.
I did learn a ton. A lot of the most valuable lessons in life generally come from hard experience, and work life is no exception. Still, I can't say I'd recommend actively _seeking out_ such experiences.
I was actually working for a company that had been acquired by Amazon several years earlier, and I was working on a non-feature team. So on the one hand, maybe my bad experience was that it wasn't "Amazon proper," or maybe the lesson is "be sure to work on software the visibly provides profit and avoid working on software that merely keeps the company going as a viable venture."
OTOH, we were pretty well integrated with Amazon at this point. A lot of people from Amazon proper had transferred here, because it had a reputation as having a much better culture. The vesting schedule was much better, for instance. So maybe I just picked the wrong team -- there's probably something to the "avoid working in a cost-center" lesson.
Then again, there's so many stories of people who have had a bad experience, that being "unlucky" seems to happen more often than seems optimal.
I did learn a ton. A lot of the most valuable lessons in life generally come from hard experience, and work life is no exception. Still, I can't say I'd recommend actively _seeking out_ such experiences.