[cebert]

Most of the feedback I’ve read about working at Amazon seems to be negative. It’s hard for me to reconcile though. As a user of AWS, I love many of their services and the possibilities AWS opens. Most of the negative feedback I’ve read centers around: PIPs, management, work/life balance, on-call, and frugality. If Amazon wants more folks to consider working there, I think they really need to get in front of this from a PR perspective and address these concerns.

[redredrobot]

Lol when I said that at an org-level all-hands everyone laughed, but the need for improved PR is very real.

But it’s important to remember that there are a ton of extremely happy people at Amazon (or at least AWS, where I worked) they just aren’t as vocal online - management, scope and culture were incredible in my experience (it’s a huge company where managers have a lot of flexibility, YMMV). And some of the biggest day-to-day issues you hear about like crappy offices or excessive frugality were a thing of the past when I was there. And in terms of PIP, I only had one experience with it - having a mechanism for identifying and getting rid of the people who are a drain on everyone else was very nice.

[cebert]

Thanks for commenting here with more context. I’ve considered apply to AWS in the past, but was hesitant to due to the mostly negative online feedback about working there. However, as you suggested, there has to be folks who love working there. I read the reviews for my current employer and there are some negative reviews that don’t seem accurate of my experience there. I think my employer is a generally good place to work. I typically work 50-60 hours a week consistently, so I wonder if the work/life complaints regarding AWS would be that different from the demands of my current position.