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Amazon Web Services

Part of Amazon

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Stay away - Software Development Engineer (SDE) Amazon Web Services Employee Review

1.0
Jan 1, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Learning what it’s like to operate software at a big scale

Cons

Too many cons. So much politics. Seeing “the Old boys club” in action. Self interested clique throwing everyone else under the bus to promote themselves. You’re likely to work on “Amazon baggage” like fixing security vulnerabilities, patching, a top down ask that has nothing or little to do with the product and your career will be wasted on “amazon baggage” work. Everything is built (some really badly) in house so a lot of your learnings won’t apply outside. “Customer obsession” is abused to make you work like a horse. Toxic culture promotes toxic competition between peers. Painful and traumatic oncall and no extra remuneration for being oncall so effectively the competitive compensation package they offer is not really good because you will be working double the amount and on toilsome boring things that don’t advance your career. Working here should come with a mental and physical health warning. Promotions and performance reviews are a mystery. And recently the Return to Office mandate. Stay away, seriously.

Explore other reviews about Amazon Web Services

5.0
Jun 22, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Strong engineering culture, competitive pay, great learning opportunities, and excellent internal mobility across teams.

Cons

Work-life balance can be tough, on-call rotations are demanding, and the pace is fast with high expectations.

3.0
Jun 21, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Ambitious projects if you're in the right team. Typically great team-mates. Don't believe the memes, the ppl are not back stabbing jerks but are overall genuinely nice. Not constrained by budgets when building cool things. Tools while sometimes clunky are powerful.

Cons

Schizophrenic lack of focus, entire teams get split, merged and upended multiple times a quarter. Some product managers are disconnected from reality. It didn't use to be the case, the PM-Ts were previously top notch. You're pushed to vibe code everything. Established products with loyal customers are getting neglected. Newer VP level leaders don't seem to know what they are doing. Veteran OG VP level leaders are either leaving in droves or seem stressed or checked out.

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