Amazon Software Developer reviews

3.5

54% would recommend to a friend

(6,214 total reviews)
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Andrew Jassy

41% approve of CEO

53% positive business outlook

Software Developer employees have rated Amazon with 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 6,214 company reviews on Glassdoor. This indicates that most Software Developer professionals have a good working experience there. Amazon is rated in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) by Software Developer professionals compared to other employers within the Tecnologías de la información industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

6K reviews
4.0
Feb 2, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay is good, and there's a great work environment there, with many chances to prove yourself. There is a constant push to advance your career, and you are given many opportunities to succeed.

Cons

There are not nearly as many perks as working at a place like Google. Above the base salary, the only other good perks is the stock units, which is pretty standard at any big company. The atmosphere of frugality goes too far sometimes, as it can be hard for an SDE to even get a second monitor

2.0
Jan 29, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Nothing special, really. An advantage is that you can push hard for something, and if you're willing to put in the time, you will be able to get it done. If you've got the energy, drive, and chutzpah, you can do well here, but this is a production environment, don't expect cutting edge. Pay is good.

Cons

Amazon is basically a big store with a huge web presence. Don't expect anything really exciting to happen here. Although, occasionally, something may pop out. When you work here, consider yourself a cog. The catch-phrase is something like "a good software developer can do anything." What this means, in practice, is that everyone seems to be working on stuff they are not particularly good at. If there is a need to deal with a web scalability problem, there may be someone two desks down who may be an expert on server scalability, but is instead working on UI. No effort seems to be made to fit people with their strengths. Amazon's emphasis on frugality makes it so the work environment is not particularly pleasant. Be prepared to work in a "start up" work environment with power cords hanging from the ceiling, cheap desks, no partitions, etc. A real issue with the frugality mindset is that Amazon tries to develop on a shoestring. The build procedures are poorly planned, and tools are pretty primitive. Most infrastructure groups are woefully understaffed and it shows. Because the infrastructure is so poor, developers can expect to spend more time dealing with infrastructure issues (such as build issues) than in other companies. So much time is wasted dealing with issues like this, that you can expect to work overtime just to get a normal amount of work done. Lastly, benefits are not great.

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