Insane Attrition

Employee attrition at Amazon is insane and everybody knows it. There's a clear sense that most people are going to leave as soon as they can because they only came to Amazon as a springboard to something better.  Others who initially thought they might build a career here end up quitting after they realize they are fodder on operations heavy teams and are going to get pushed out as soon as they start getting stressed out by the impossible workload. There's nothing healthy about this work environment.

Due to the attrition and need to both constantly replace so many people as well as actually hire more to support the insane growth plans, the hiring process is even more of a mess. Since every team hires for themselves, this leads to incredibly inconsistent hiring bars. Therefore, internal transfers need to actually be put through the ringer like external hires unless you want to get stuck with someone else's bad hires. Even the intern program is broken, converting far too many failed interns into full time employees just to get more bodies in the door. This adds even more pressure on other engineers who are forced to try to mentor these incompetent new employees while struggling to stay afloat ourselves. Truly a no-win situation.