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Amazon Web Services

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Wish I never joined - HR Manager Amazon Web Services Employee Review

1.0
28 Feb 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

It's very difficult to get into the company so tenure here is like a badge of honour to others

Cons

The CEO is awful at communicating. Expect to hear about policies that affect your life from external news sources before they are communicated internally. The Return to Office announcement went back on promises made to employees and disrupts so many lives. Don't expect them to be serious about Inclusion. They are so far behind others and still call women 'diverse hires' (like there's no other kind of diversity!) There's no accountability from VPs and senior leaders. When times get tough you can expect monthly meetings to be cancelled so they don't have to answer difficult questions. While people are getting laid off, AWS execs are literally dancing on TV shows and sending emails round to staff asking them to donate money. They talk about being data driven but if they want to do something the data doesn't support they'll just do whatever they want. If you accept an offer, get everything you agree on writing especially in relation to where and when you work. They can and will go back on what you verbally agree. Know that any compensation they give you as RSUs or joining bonuses are completely forfeit if they decide to lay you off.

Explore other reviews about Amazon Web Services

5.0
27 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great job. I’ve learned so much it is just hard with 5 day rto

Cons

The 5 day RTO mandate

4.0
12 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Operated in systems that had real scale, operational constraints, and production consequences.

Cons

Working at Amazon Web Services gave me strong exposure to distributed systems, operational ownership, and production-scale infrastructure, but there were definitely tradeoffs as well. One downside was that, like many large organizations, ownership could become fragmented. You often own a subsystem or workflow rather than an entire product end-to-end, which can limit exposure to broader architectural decision-making unless you deliberately seek it out. There was also significant process overhead. Design reviews, operational processes, dependency coordination, and organizational alignment were valuable for learning rigor, but they can slow iteration compared to smaller engineering teams. Another challenge is that large internal ecosystems can abstract away infrastructure complexity. AWS has extensive internal tooling, deployment systems, and operational platforms, which are powerful, but some of that experience does not transfer directly outside the company. I also found that operational work could dominate engineering time at points. Handling production issues, retries, integration failures, and on-call responsibilities teaches reliability engineering well, but it can reduce the amount of time spent on deeper technical exploration or greenfield development. Finally, there is the perception aspect. AWS is a strong name, but experienced interviewers know there is wide variance between teams and roles. The company name opens doors, but ultimately you still need to demonstrate technical depth, ownership, and strong engineering judgment independently of the brand.

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