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Amazon Web Services

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Amazon Web Services reviews

3.6

62% would recommend to a friend

(13,947 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 13,947 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 13, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

A large variety of AWS customers. Lots of opportunities to learn and make an impact. Great cloud technology.

Cons

The 4yr vesting period for stock options. Inadequate PTO and parental leave policies. Lack of work-life balance, or "work-life harmony", as AWS puts it. Heavy fragmentation of internal information, tools, business intel, knowledge repositories, knowledge sharing, and learning systems. Management appears to be hyper-focused on metrics and KPIs rather than understanding things holistically. There is a lot of talk of "Diversity and Inclusion", but in reality, it's lip-service, and it's probably done to satisfy legal obligations. If you are neurodivergent, then you better be prepared with appropriate medical documentation. The salesy-ness involved in technical roles is not clearly communicated in job postings or during the interview process. It's described as "looking around corners for customers" to technical candidates. Probably to avoid turning away technical candidates who don't want to do sales. "Data-driven culture" is a euphemism for micro-management culture (example: your computer screen being observed at all times, calls and meetings being analyzed, etc; to be fair, other employers probably do this, as well). Leadership Principles are great in theory, but in practice, they are selectively chosen and interpreted (example: when you expect everyone to be an "owner" of everything, then there is a diffusion of responsibility which results in low quality, inaccurate, and fragmented systems and information; when you point this out, you are criticized for a "lack of ownership" because you are expected to fix everything). There seems to be a sadistic drive to push each person to reinvent the wheel or figure things out for themselves as some form of validation of their Leadership Principles rather than creating a culture of systemic mutual support which could scale and amplify the effectiveness of all employees.

1.0
Oct 4, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great on a resume, pay is excellent for the first two years.

Cons

Useful onboarding was almost nonexistent (just some high level videos & almost no support from my team). Manager has been downright insulting. Larger org has no real vision for the future beyond minor upgrades to existing products. Night calls several times a week because overseas team can’t seem to respond to emails (massively understaffed). Shocking lack of diversity. It’s like a company that grew too fast and became a hot mess internally. Would take a pay cut to leave asap.

5.0
Aug 18, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

As a customer of Amazon Prime for years, and unknowingly a customer of AWS via Netflix and other large AWS customers, I have always been impressed with the service and offerings. Now that I'm on the other side, I get it. There is no secret sauce here, there's just a passionate obsession over customers. It's elevated to an art form here.

Cons

These aren't necessarily cons, but facts to consider before you apply to AWS. It's a self-serve company. While there are tons of resources to help, both human and otherwise, you've got to figure it out on your own. It's not your typical corporate environment, with office managers and administrative assistants at your beck and call. Be comfortable with figuring stuff out on your own - actually, thrive at it - and you'll do well.

Viewing 79 - 81 of 13,947 Reviews

Glassdoor has 16,798 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.