Pros
Exciting technical projects to work on Fast Paced environment with a never ending supply of cool problems to solve for real customers
Cons
In 17 years of working for technical companies, Amazon is the first company I have left, because of the Managers, culture and the corporate design around firing and hiring It Stems around their Principles, and the company's poor management training and hiring Managers are treated like prince and princesses of their own kingdoms and most of them are inexperienced and Amazon does nothing to train them better! Think Big - Translation: Over-promise and under-deliver as a culture means most developers never deliver on what they promise and always lose morale Bias for Action - Translation: make important decisions in isolation means first releases will often fall short technically because of a lack of engineering rigor. The stock incentive is built around their broken management system. If they burn most employees out to the point of leaving prior to the 2.5 year mark, then they pay you very little in Stock Awards. Don't be fooled by their stock awards! Most employees will never see the benefit! Right Often - Managers have developed a culture of dishonesty. They require people under them to agree with their plans, and worse, ultimately believe they are the voice of the customer. This means, everyone under them has to agree with them, or if they don't then they are stupid. You don't want to be stupid, do you? Then you better agree with them. Ideally this principle is supposed to make people push for the right thing in an organization, and when you do push for the right thing, you can labeled stupid for six months. Then when your boss realizes you are right, he or she will acknowledge your right. But, do the math, if you are stupid for 6 months, and right for 15 seconds, what do you think your general reputation will be in your group. ...I could go on