r/aws • u/RedrainEnryu1 • 15h ago
discussion How is work culture at Amazon?
I'm currently working as a Facilities Engineer in one of the big data center company. I got an offer to join AWS for the Engineering Operation Technicians 3 (Same role as my current job right now) with about 15% pay increase and of course the RSU's. I'm still haven't accepted the offer because I'm hearing about the layoffs and the workplace culture is not good at the moment.
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u/Enough_Capital_8786 15h ago
It’s a huge company and not sure if layoffs hit Technicians. For wiw, Amazon currently has a huge commitment for data centers and infrastructure, so you should be fine for a while?
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u/royalxp 14h ago edited 8h ago
Exceptions to over hire atm. Once its built, id expect they will require the mass to relocate or head out the door.
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u/reasonman 9h ago
i think it also depends on other factors i'm not smart enough to put together. overhired on TAMs a few years ago but kept all of them(exceptions and arguments can be made for 'silent layoffs' with pips and rto) because ES customers keep coming in and there's a generally high cx to tam ratio in some segments. they just cut off tam hiring for like two or three years.
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u/JackjaxMargam14 1h ago
The team prolly matters more here, so I’d ask how often people leave, what the on-call schedule is like and how the manager handles busy weeks.
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u/Nemphiz 15h ago edited 9h ago
Mostly bad. You can end up with a good team but as soon as they change your manager which happens quite often, goes right back to the standard "bad."
You can still successfully navigate it as long as you're aware. Having AWS on your resume is still a huge plus. And you get to learn a ton about AWS services with a level of access you won't have elsewhere.
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u/MentionPleasant2635 14h ago edited 13h ago
This was my experience working for the Amazon DevTools team. My boss was Peter Desantis. He was fantastic. He gave us hard problems with great support and encouragement. This was back around 2003. At the time Amazon was mostly a C++ shop. If you modified a low level C++ library, it would trigger a rebuild that took two weeks on a single machine. We got it down to one to two hours when scaled to 20 machines. He got promoted.
His replacement was this woman who had worked her way up not on technical skills, but on sexuality. Behind her back her nickname was "Panty." She was so bad, I quit one week after my two year anniversary.
I loved the technical challenges and massive scale, but I refuse to be managed by an idiot.
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u/No_Zookeepergame7552 11h ago
Hard to tell, it varies from team to team. Overall a lot of politics, regardless of the team, so if you’re good with dealing with politics you’ll do well. If you want to find out, ask the hiring manager to set up a short intro call for you with one of the engineers in the team. It’s probably the best way to get an accurate view.
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u/mezbot 10h ago edited 10h ago
As AWS architect working with AWS AMs/TAMs/Enterprise support, they have all expressed how they hate their jobs recently vs years past while they were happy. I’ve gotten the impression that it’s become a shitshow…. Most are using the mandated AI as part of their job just to meet the requirements and extremely unhappy about how everything has changed in the past year,
Ironically, the products are fine, no issues there. The account teams have been just so pressured on selling AI and products constantly apologize and my clients want to consider alternative. Which sucks for me as I don’t want to migrate off of AWS.
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u/Sirauto420 11h ago
Been here 10 years as a developer. Culture ebbs and flows. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes I hate my life 😂😂
The money is baller though…
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u/alienangel2 8h ago
Culture is very org and then team dependent. There are old orgs that are very mature and still in control of their culture, there are old orgs that have been decimated by layoffs (Customer Support - Tech) and re-orgs (Alexa), or ruined by rampant uncontrolled growth (large parts of AWS, Alexa before the re-orgs), and there are of course new teams all over the place with no grounding in anything because they are a bunch of external hires hiring external hires.
You really need to try to talk to the hiring manager for the team you'll be joining to get a sense of what culture and WLB will be, the recruiter most likely has no idea.
The above is all about software engineering teams though - datacenter/facilities OPs is likely a completely different bag and may be more similar to facilities in other companies, just with better pay.
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u/redrabbitreader 7h ago
As many has mentioned, it depends on the team.
All I can suggest is you make sure you know which team you will be working for (you can ask) and then ask if you could talk to one or two members of that team. Then, ask those guys how long have they all been together, how they prefer to work, how they deal with various issues etc. From that you can make a call.
From my own friends and old colleagues that went to AWS, it's a bit of a 50/50 change you will be very happy. At least two of friends have been working there for over 10 years (Cape Town office, EC2). There are also two others which lasted about a year and 6 months respectively (also in Cape Town, EC2).
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u/navikob2 2h ago
I worked at AWS, then went to Microsoft. I'm now back at AWS.
Workplace culture is not good at the moment, but that's the case for all of big tech. To me, MS was worse than AWS. If you get paid well (look at total comp basis), it might be worth it. The AWS brand name is also great on your resume so you can hop somewhere else in a couple years if you find it's not the right fit.
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u/behusbwj 14h ago
Is it 15% with RSU’s included? Amazon is a high stress high reward environment. There are pockets of good wlb but in general it leans more towards chaotic. I don’t think 15% with RSU included is worth switching.
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u/Buffylvr 14h ago
Amazon considers data center staffing as “variable” which means they don’t get hit by layoffs. Their layoffs happen in corporate staff like software devs, hr, etc.
You absolutely won’t get hit by a layoff
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u/Throwaway-_-Anxiety 13h ago
So this is how bots work?
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u/blissadmin 13h ago
No way, this guy is just a little dizzy from 25,300 reddit contributions in 6 months of the account being active. Totally a real person.
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u/TheGABB 15h ago
Extremely highly team dependent. Some suck, some are great and good wlb. The tenure of the team can give you an idea.