Pros
- Above average compensation packages if you negotiate for it - There are some interesting and unique initiatives to get involved with. - Some people are fun & nice to work with.
Cons
- Political and unethical leadership. There are fifedoms that go unchallenged. - Poor people management & lack of quality leadership. It is not uncommon for employees with little aptitude or relevant experience to be promoted based on politics. They often make poor managers and contribute to negative employee morale. I've seen wonderful & talented employees ignored in favour of less competent counterparts, due to nonsensical personal politics wielded by snr management. Without exception, they all have walked away & into much better jobs. Amazon find it hard to keep talent, & when they get talent they dont seem to know how to leverage it. - The Amazon value of "frugality" is in theory a good one, however the way in which it's leveraged within the organisation, leaves many employees feeling used and abused. The constant pinching over basic expenses, door desks, computer equipment etc results in employees feeling demotivated and uninvested in the company. - Type A micromanagement. Everything from MBA managers telling you how to write an email or telling you how to do the job you've been doing for the last 15 years - a job in they haven't done. There is a pervasive sense from snr management, that they are 'superior beings' and this grates, particularly if you find them to be ineffective. There can be lots of focus on face time & clock watching. I was based in HQ (not in a distribution centre) but it felt like I was working a shift job where I had to punch in & punch out. If I was 15 mins late they would want me to stay 15 mins more at the end of the day. - Incredibly high employee churn. This is for a multitude of reasons: lack of work life balance; Type A culture of micromanagement; 'frugality' & poor people management in which unethical politics pervades. The company bleeds talent constantly, but there doesn't appear to be an interest in addressing the issue of churn - in my team, snr management stopped telling the team when a coworker had resigned, because to do so would possibly mean having to address the underlying & aforementioned issues of why employees leave.
