Throwaway for obvious reasons. Just to add some AMZN perspective:
Amazon has big company problems just as much as any of these. In fact, from what I've heard from friends working for other FAANG and similar companies, AMZN tends to have a bigger proportion of terrible managers. This is because the Leadership Principles can be interpreted in several ways and more often than not, gets interpreted in a way that works for managers to push their agenda. The promotion process is a joke. There's a lot of politics, and you have no control over when you're getting promoted. For those that believe that they had enough leverage on when to get promoted, IMO they simply were at the right place at the right time (or as I've seen, got promoted later than they think they deserved to.)
AMZN managers like to quote Jeff a lot. Two of those have worked terribly at the org I work at:
"good intentions don't work" has introduced so many processes in the org that getting actual work done is getting harder by the day. Engineers don't like to do project management, but all these processes are a micromanager's wet dream.
"Amazon is a great place to fail". It really is not. AMZN is a terrible place to fail because once you fail, they bring it up every single time to ensure you don't have leverage. AMZN managers don't seem to appreciate growth. Or they're intentionally blind towards it to ensure they can squeeze a few more years from you while keeping you at the same level. Title being connected to both compensation and the kind of work you get sucks, and if you joined AMZN after the boom in late 2015, compensation is definitely not a reason to stay.
The only folks who are happy at AMZN are those that aren't deluding themselves by saying they are making a real impact. If you're anywhere below senior SDE you're not making any impact. Of course, exceptions exist.
Amazon has big company problems just as much as any of these. In fact, from what I've heard from friends working for other FAANG and similar companies, AMZN tends to have a bigger proportion of terrible managers. This is because the Leadership Principles can be interpreted in several ways and more often than not, gets interpreted in a way that works for managers to push their agenda. The promotion process is a joke. There's a lot of politics, and you have no control over when you're getting promoted. For those that believe that they had enough leverage on when to get promoted, IMO they simply were at the right place at the right time (or as I've seen, got promoted later than they think they deserved to.)
AMZN managers like to quote Jeff a lot. Two of those have worked terribly at the org I work at:
"good intentions don't work" has introduced so many processes in the org that getting actual work done is getting harder by the day. Engineers don't like to do project management, but all these processes are a micromanager's wet dream.
"Amazon is a great place to fail". It really is not. AMZN is a terrible place to fail because once you fail, they bring it up every single time to ensure you don't have leverage. AMZN managers don't seem to appreciate growth. Or they're intentionally blind towards it to ensure they can squeeze a few more years from you while keeping you at the same level. Title being connected to both compensation and the kind of work you get sucks, and if you joined AMZN after the boom in late 2015, compensation is definitely not a reason to stay.
The only folks who are happy at AMZN are those that aren't deluding themselves by saying they are making a real impact. If you're anywhere below senior SDE you're not making any impact. Of course, exceptions exist.