Reviews voor Amazon

Pluspunten

Amazon Web Services, deel van Amazon, heeft het motto 'Work hard, have fun, make history'; en dit is zeker waar voor Amazon en AWS in de Benelux. Amazon/AWS is al jaren actief lokaal in Nederland maar werkt redelijk op de achtergrond - de producten spreken voor zichzelf als het ware. De organisatie staat lokaal en in EMEA zelfstandig maar er is natuurlijk ook veel interactie met collega's in de USA, UK, Duitsland, Asie of Australie. Het is een 1 van de meest internationale tech bedrijven die ik ken; zo ver zelfs dat het ook niet per definitie Amerikaans te noemen is.
Amazon/AWS heeft z'n eigen peculiar cultuur.

Ongekende groei en technisch hoogstaande middelen geven de ruimte om te pionieren en te bouwen terwijl er een rijkdom aan informatie en middelen bestaat om te bouwen wat werkt voor de klant. Het is een werk omgeving voor de top mensen die elkaar ook opzoeken; en die elkaar uitdagen. Naast veel vrijheid om dingen aan te pakken is er de vrijheid om te groeien en te leren en te veranderen. Dat maakt het een unieke werkgever maar wel 1 die ook eisen stelt aan de werknemers.
De befaamde Amazon leadership principals zeggen heel veel over deze werkgever; en zijn daadwerkelijk van toepassing en in natuurlijk conflict.

Ook: "It's always day 1!"; wat zoveel betekend dat in Amazon we elke dag als een nieuwe kans pakken om zaken anders te kunnen doen.

Advies aan management

Keep the bar high & secure the culture.

Pluspunten

* Internationale uitdagingen;
* omgeving waarin je gechallenged wordt
* verloning inclusief aandelen

Advies aan management

investeer in personeel & opleidingen

Pluspunten

Er zijn veel doorgroeimogellijkheden in dit bedrijf die heel erg snel evolueert. Winst participatie en gratis aandelen behoren tot het loonpakket

Advies aan management

Spend more effort to retain employees

Pluspunten

Groot en bekend bedrijf veel werkgelegenheid en veel mogelijk eden goed management en niet chaotisch het was erg gezellig en leuk om te werken

Advies aan management

-

Pluspunten

Really smart people, a lot of opportunity for growth, always encouraged to be innovative, think big, and create something new. Competitive salary and benefits with other major tech companies. 100% self motivating work environment. No dress code and 4 legged friends are welcome.

Advies aan management

More on-boarding training before new employees are thrown in the fire. The first couple of weeks can be very confusing on where to find the information you need that pertains to your job.

Pluspunten

Jeff Bezos and his "S-Team" are brilliant and continue to make great decisions for long-term growth.

You work with smart people, you work on exciting projects, you are pushed to your limits...which can be rewarding when you accomplish great things. The diversity of the potential work and innovation can be very alluring. I've often called Amazon my "Sexy Mistress...she's emotionally abusive, but she's so sexy that I go back for more punishment."

Advies aan management

Don't pretend that the recent NY Times article was all about "isolated incidents". The culture IS abusive and it WILL backfire once stock value starts to drop. I'm an 8 year veteran and I no longer recommend former peers to interview with Amazon.

Pluspunten

Amazon is doing lot's of cool stuff...but lots of boring stuff too. There are really well run teams...and very badly run teams. The experience for software managers and engineers is all over the board, from really run low operational load teams to teams where people burn out after a year.

 - Amazon is built, quite deliberately, to be Darwinian. You can generally expect that anyone who's been here for more than 2 years is competent and motivated or they wouldn't have survived. You can count on them as long as your priorities are aligned. There aren't many slackers here, and they don't survive long.
  - We work on so much stuff that there's always an opportunity to find amazing cool stuff to work on (note that it's an 'opportunity', one that you have to pursue)
  - A chance to make a huge difference
  - A place where you can learn a lot about all kinds of things, both technical and about yourself
  - Amazon encourages high mobility - even your manager can't prevent you from moving to another team within 6 weeks (normally, more than a few months under unusual conditions).
  - Your friends and family have actually heard of the place you work and have at least a vague notion of what Amazon does without you having to explain

Advies aan management

Stack ranking is a horrible practice since it's rife with favoritism. It's also not Amazonian in that it's not data based (arbitrarily designating a certain percentage of employees that must be put on performance management isn't a data driven criterion) and it's not frugal (effectively forcing an individual out of the company in one division who would make the grade in another is either retaining someone who doesn't meet the bar or a waste of talent). The goal is to force managers to actually make the hard decisions about how their team members compare with each other (not everyone can be exceptional), but it has more defects than virtues. Replace it with a common comparison of each person against the bar for their position, based on data. The percentages that are assigned to each performance category will turn out how they turn out, but there will be an evaluation mechanism that's fair and frugal.

Pluspunten

I've been at Amazon for a month now, and I've seen none of the horror stories being communicated to the public, although Amazon is a large enough company that I'm sure there are good pockets and bad pockets. Everyone here is really smart, and wants to succeed both personally, and as a company. People collaborate and help each other, focus on data, and truly focus on the customer. Every company I've ever worked for talks about how important the customer is, but on day 2, they're forgotten. Amazon seems to genuinely focus on what's best for the customer, and it's awesome to be in meetings where people actually bring that up, and make decisions focused on long-term customer satisfaction.

The opportunities to learn here are literally unlimited, and the opportunity to take on new responsibility is as well. I honestly believe you can be as awesome as you want here.

Pluspunten

This company gets A list performance from C list employees. The culture is quick and hard charging. You are always working in relevant and meaningful projects.

Advies aan management

Bezos you bought the Washington Post and hired Jay Carney to be your PR head. There is nothing I can write here that you would deign listen to, because you are a hack. You must be mad that Expedia beat you to the punch and hired Chelsea Clinton to serve on their board of directors.

For those grasping Weasels that have squirmed and back stabbed your way to success, you know who you are. You won't care what is written here because "You got yours, Eff them."

For those truly diligent and hard working employees that don't want to believe the story from NY times that called Amazon a "Snake Pit" because you don't want to think you actually are involved in such a dystopian landscape of anti-business ethics: "Always yell with the crowd. It is the only means to be safe."