Needles in Stacks

People ask me: what is the reality at amazon working as an engineer? Here it is: Some teams are sh*t. Some are great. Most have pros and cons. It's the same everywhere across the company. Culture is generally good overall but that doesn't translate down for all teams.

The horror/stress is exaggerated as a lot of teams are fine and people are happy. However, there are lots and lots of broken teams and they never get fixed as they just fire and replace. The broken teams are like needles in stacks of needles and hay stacks. There's a lot of them but it's not everyone. You can be joining a sh*t show or a solid team that knows what it’s doing. It's an odds game, but why take the risk? Enjoy life and don't work at Amazon. It's a hell hole for too many.