Pros
Better than average quality of employees.: Amazon has a good hiring process and the newer employees are all competent. Employees are generally devoid of arrogance, which is a common complaint about companies like Google. Innovative department structure: The two-pizza team structure is innovative and offers a fair amount of departmental autonomy in theory(does not always work in practice) . If you prefer(as I do) an agile developer run process, Amazon has the advantage of not imposing counter-productive heavy processes. Developers have considerable autonomy to complete their assigned job on a day to day basis, though expect to be blocked ruthlessly and unreasonably if you try to be innovative. Developers treated relatively well: You will get your extra flat-screen monitor on demand, no questions asked when your manager wont. Your manager's digs will not be much better than your own. Weekly tech talks etc.
Cons
Excessive, incompetent and unnecessary middle management: Too many less competent people from early days. are now in middle management Middle management rarely seen to come up with a constructive idea but will block and side-track ideas from developers. Tracking metrics is a cultish obsession. "Churn and burn" culture: I picked up the phrase "churn and burn" from a posting on another website by an Amazon manager, but it fits so I'll use it. The philosophy seems to be to mindless pressure the employees to improve "productivity". Amazon seems to do this way beyond the optimal point. This may be a trait of Jeff's that filters through the organization and manifests in a distorted form. The death march feeling is always there and morale is poor. 24X7 pagers are common but you may not be told in the interview process. Intellectual pretensions in technology: Possibly due to a lot of bright but immature young hires there is a bit of a poseur culture regarding what is appreciated. IME outside the main website there is more of a desire to impress Slashdot than win and keep new customers(e.g. Mechanical Turk with no attempt to engage real users and customers for it) Awful cramped working conditions: There is NO attention paid to making the workplace brighter and fun. People are packed as tight as possible. There are no recreational facilities or a couch to sit on and read an industry magazine. I guess they want to keep employees "productive". Move to the burbs if necessary but give people some breathing room, please!
