Pros
Compensation - overall comp is in line with other tech companies, which is a lot of money. There are still some cool areas of tech which only the big boys can afford to fund.
Cons
Amazon has the lowest standards for engineering practices, too often trading short term gains for long term pain. People only care about the next promotion and so if it's not a promo-worthy project, or something that can wow a VP they don't care. You will inherit neglected, years old software relying on deprecated libraries and be asked to keep building onto it because they won't support work that improves quality of services and tools. Amazon's internal tools are the worst-in-class. The work tracking, ticketing and internal meeting tools are all trash. Amazon has joke brewed half dozen horrible solutions to problems that are better solved by competent companies. There is a dearth of leadership at Amazon. You will constantly get mixed priorities all the way from the top and nobody will articulate a real vision. This way they can always claim some measure of success in the VP eyes.. It's pathetic. Amazon comp is largely based on stock compensation so if you joined when it was near the peak then your overall dropped by as much as 25% this year and they do NOTHING to make up for it. Internal staff stack ranking will turn even your closest allies against you and people will steal your ideas as their own trying to make themselves appear better. It's absolutely cutthroat. There is no work life balance. My boss would give me 16 hours of work on a Friday afternoon and then useless advice like "just close your laptop at 5pm".. So disingenuous. It's the evil empire you work for - is the money worth your soul? I decided no and quit.
