Beware of the blame game and PIP culture
Pros
Good pay, name recognition, ability to make lots of industry connections.
Cons
At AWS, and Amazon in general, you will at a risk of PIP every six months, regardless of your past performance or contribution. AWS has a blame-game culture. When something doesn't go right, they will find a scape-goat. And if you are at L6 or lower, you can become a target of that blame game easily. Once your manager identifies you as a target, they will start to systematically and deliberately give you written "suggestions" or "feedback" for how you can improve. They will make it sound like this is for your own good, but the ultimate goal is to get rid of you. Over weeks or months, the negative feedback will be cranked up. Your manager will start finding faults at everything you do and will start telling you how you are missing on the (utterly BS) Leadership Principles. One fine day they will email you, giving you a list of tasks to do over the next few weeks. Congratulations -- You are on a "Focus" (your manager won't use this word)! The focus may continue for a few weeks or months. During this time, the written criticism of your work will ramp up. One fine day, your manager will tell you that we need to take the next step in the process - "Pivot". Long story short, this entire process will leave you feeling drained and worthless. In the end the mental agony of going through the Focus-Pivot process makes you wonder if the pay is really worth it all. You will be particularly vulnerable to this process during the first two years. So even if you join AWS, keep your resume updated and keep your options open.
