Boring - Software Development Engineer I Amazon Employee Review

1.0
22 Jan 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good pay, talented & fun coworkers, flexible hours, work from home, wide selection of food trucks at lunch time

Cons

This was a developer position, and I barely got the opportunity to program, and when I did it was mind numbingly trivial. I worked in Retail Systems, and they are mostly bogged down in trouble tickets and constant feature requests from the business side, leaving little time to actually develop software. Furthermore, the paranoia about losing money leads to aversion toward software change, which means the code-base is a monstrous pile of incremental changes accumulated over the years. Almost no documentation, and I frequently would hear sentiments that documentation or comments would be a hindrance-- since that would mean having to maintain the documentation or comments in parallel with the code (this might have just been a cultural aspect of my team). There seems to be a revolving door for young developers, as well as people jumping around from team to team, so teams' know-how deteriorates to the point where there are large portions of code that no one is familiar with. And yet, you have to support that code when you are on-call. If you aren't familiar with on-call, it means getting paged at any time of day when there are problems with the software. You might be thrown into a scenario where you are responsible for Amazon ordering being down, and the problem lies in your team's software, but you aren't familiar with that part of the code. You will probably just have to relay this to your team members-- which is fine-- but needless to say it is stressful. I was promised to eventually get the chance to do some real software development, but perhaps not for a year or more. If you are in it for the long haul, maybe it could be okay. I didn't care about the money, and it didn't make it worth letting my career stagnate for 2-3 years waiting until I was senior enough to do maybe have the chance to do some real work.

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5.0
28 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Competitive hourly pay in many locations Benefits may include health insurance and tuition assistance Flexible scheduling options at some warehouses Opportunities for overtime and extra pay Entry-level job with minimal experience required

Cons

Physically demanding work with long hours standing or lifting Fast-paced environment with strict productivity targets Repetitive tasks can become tiring Work schedules may include nights, weekends, or holidays High stress during peak shopping seasons like holidays

5.0
10 Jan 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Really smart people, a lot of opportunity for growth, always encouraged to be innovative, think big, and create something new. Competitive salary and benefits with other major tech companies. 100% self motivating work environment. No dress code and 4 legged friends are welcome.

Cons

You have to be self motivated. NO ONE will hold your hand and tell you that you're doing a great job. If you need constant affirmations from management, this company isn't for you.

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