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Amazon Web Services

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Amazon Web Services reviews

3.6

62% would recommend to a friend

(13,934 total reviews)
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Matt Garman

52% approve of CEO

62% positive business outlook

Amazon Web Services has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 13,934 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Amazon Web Services employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the IT (Information Technology) industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

14K reviews
1.0
Oct 22, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The salary offered was above average.

Cons

The interview process is overly time-consuming and ultimately requires sitting through at least one 4-5 hour interview loop with 5-6 different people where you are grilled on the same generic "tell me about a time when.." question over and over. Once hired, you must fully commit to a stereotypical corporate culture which includes constant doc writing and following the leadership principles like a religion to have any chance of success. You are regularly expected to respond to emails on weekends and join late night calls for non-critical items that could have been an email. It is very typical to be on the phone with people who are dialing in from their child's sporting event, a doctor appointment, while driving etc. because of this always on the clock mentality. Despite the high expectations, you only receive a meager two weeks of PTO, which is a joke is today's market and a death sentence for working here. It is widely known and discussed internally that the average lifespan of someone at AWS is only 1-2 years before they burn out and leave and it becomes immediately clear to see why as the extreme stress that is induced by leadership unsuprisingly leads to consistent backstabbing and infighting amongst teams. Overall, a job with AWS may be worthwhile as a stepping stone to something better, but be prepared to sacrifice your mental wellbeing and personal life along the way.

4.0
Jul 7, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great onboarding: The three month onboarding experience was very helpful in understanding company culture, my organization, and the various tools I needed to learn to be successful at my job. Good compensation: pay is good but I would recommend people get familiar with levels.fyi to understand total compensation packages, pay scales, and leveling at Amazon. Diverse group: My new-hire cohort was very diverse and many had incredible backgrounds working in various fields. My team is also quite diverse and have experience in fields that were not related to the job which is a great. Room for growth & innovation: the liberty to create things and to spearhead initiatives is wonderful. You are given the room to fail but also to learn from your mistakes. Each team has metrics which they are measured against and they are very high. My advice is that if you are consistently looking for ways to innovate and improve how you do things you will be surprised how much room you are given to fail. Mentorship and mentoring: it's great that you are able to connect with just about anyone at the company. If timed and done correctly, you can meet with people who are much higher in the organization to be mentored by them or simple to get to know them. Taking the initiative to reach out while being considerate of their time will yield you some pretty cool meetings. Also, being part of such a big organization you will have people reach out to you at events, social media, in-person, etc. for career advice and mentoring. These are wonderful opportunities to impact someone's life in a positive way by helping them navigate the demands and expectations of the industry.

Cons

Revolving door culture: it can be frustrating to start working with a particular person only to find out they have left the company or are transitioning to a new role. While career development and movement is encouraged it makes it hard to maintain momentum on projects. Ambiguity: When it comes to your particular job you'll hear a lot of "I don't know", meaning there is no clear answer to a question about your role or task. This is specially true if you join a new team within a growing business. Because teams are usually small you will find that another team may have some overlapping responsibilities but it will take some time to figure out who is in charge of a particular portion of the project you're working on. Once identified the issue is quickly resolved. Benefits are OK: The benefits are nothing special. Yes you get your choice of two insurance providers but they don't always cover some basic health benefits like women's reproductive health (fertility, labour & delivery, etc.) and if they do the premiums are not always the best. Work life balance: if you let the company will take all your time. There is so much demand to get things accomplished that unless you are disciplined and consistent in getting offline your entire time will be consumed with work.

3.0
Oct 22, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Total comp is competitive with decent performance ratings (not salary) Brand recognition, big tech Culture - writing culture etc. is unique and it's interesting to learn a new way of doing things Long term career opps if you are willing to put the effort in to building your brand and network Autonomy. Not much micro management in general

Cons

Writing culture not for everyone. you'd be pretty limited as a non native speaker or if writing is not a strong point Politics are incredible. If you're not experienced in big company politics, you're going to get taken for a fool very quickly The quality of leadership is below the standard expected. Rampant over promotion in the past decade is evident across AWS. Many non-Amazonian L7/L8s with low quality credentials.

Viewing 43 - 45 of 13,934 Reviews

Glassdoor has 16,784 Amazon Web Services reviews submitted anonymously by Amazon Web Services employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Amazon Web Services is right for you.