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Amazon Web Services

Part of Amazon

Is this your company?

Eh, it’s ok… research everything before you accept an offer - Software Development Engineer (SDE) Amazon Web Services Employee Review

2.0
19 Jun 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good experience with many AWS services Looks good on resume If you can get hired as L6+ you will make some baller $$$ cash

Cons

#1- it looks like 2025 is the year AWS is really putting the squeeze on everyone trying to get us to quit. They are deleting teams, increasing deliverables, and generally trying to make everything worse to reduce headcount by a stated goal of 15%. You will be busy and worked hard. Expect about 4 years before you will be considered for promotion. Then you will get a raise to the minimum pay band for your new role. This is policy across the company. Extremely rigid corporate culture- approved processes dictate every aspect of how you approach a problem, to the point of giving video training telling you obvious things like “if you can’t figure something out, slack a friend and ask first.” Amazon loves “VISA HOSTAGES.” Over half of your team(sometimes all of it) will be poor souls from China or India who will never dare to complain or offer honest feedback even if directly solicited. They are too afraid to lose their job and get deported. Amazon seems to intentionally hire candidates in this situation, then works them to death. Worst aspect- if the stock price goes up, this counts as a “raise”. Everyone who got hired 2022-2023 has their compensation all messed up across the board. DONT join at entry level and try to climb the ladder, the money is not there. My best advice is to keep applying for L6 and above positions as an external hire, you will get $$$ as an external hire. There is definitely $$$ at this company, but I admittedly couldn’t get it :)

Explore other reviews about Amazon Web Services

5.0
25 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great enviroment. Great people. Great benefits.

Cons

Stretched structure. Under qualified managers. Merciless recruiters

3.0
21 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Ambitious projects if you're in the right team. Typically great team-mates. Don't believe the memes, the ppl are not back stabbing jerks but are overall genuinely nice. Not constrained by budgets when building cool things. Tools while sometimes clunky are powerful.

Cons

Schizophrenic lack of focus, entire teams get split, merged and upended multiple times a quarter. Some product managers are disconnected from reality. It didn't use to be the case, the PM-Ts were previously top notch. You're pushed to vibe code everything. Established products with loyal customers are getting neglected. Newer VP level leaders don't seem to know what they are doing. Veteran OG VP level leaders are either leaving in droves or seem stressed or checked out.

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