Amazon reviews

3.5

60% would recommend to a friend

(209,243 total reviews)
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Andrew Jassy

50% approve of CEO

57% positive business outlook

Amazon has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 209,243 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Amazon employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

209K reviews
1.0
May 29, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Not much OT, salary is paid on time

Cons

This role is essentially a call centre role that is disguised as a "specialist" role. No part of the job description says that it is a call centre role. The culture here is as toxic as hell. You will be on your chair from 830-530 with only 2 x 15 mins break + 1h lunch break. If you exceed your break by even 1 minute, you're expected to explain why to your manager. Personal time aka toilet time is capped at 20 minutes a week. If you do the math, that is 4 min/day you're allowed to step away from your workstation to visit the toilet/answer phone calls. Is this even humane? The job itself is pretty redundant and full of lies. You're expected to lie to the sellers you're talking to on the phone that you have 0 visibility on the situation. In actual fact, there is 100% visibility just that you are not allowed to share any info with the seller. If you're caught sharing, you will be in what they call "The Sharing Box" which is basically a sabo box where specialists sabo each other so that they get recognised. The turnover rate is super high which says a lot about the organisation, hence they are mass hiring just to replace those that have left. There is also little to no career progression. They are intending to hire a lot of specialists in the thereabouts of 300 so you'd need to compete with 300 other specialists for promotion.

2.0
Jul 28, 2014

Lack of career development, top-heavy, unappreciated

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You will meet some of the brightest people here who are genuinely interested in technology and getting things done. Truly a place where some of the cutting edge technologies are being developed every day.

Cons

Zero career development. No career development discussions. When you do request for one, they turn it around and ask you to map out what you want. When you do, they don't respond or critique on your plan, or it will be something along the lines of "I know you want... but at the moment that is not possible". Either way, your voice is never heard. Failure to deliver on promises. You're always given new roles and additional responsibilities with the promise that you'll eventually be promoted, but it never happens. Compensation is a joke. Due to the sign-on bonuses and how they're structured, you will actually end up earning less after 2 years. Lack of recognition. I have seen many projects taken away from the local teams and become "globalised", with no recognition given to the pioneers of the projects. Yearly increments are non-existent or very small (< 5%). Amazon Leadership Principles. These principles are good in theory, but in practise they're used against you. You'd be faulted if you spent more than necessary on a campaign for not being "Frugal", because you wanted to be "Customer Obsessed". You'd be faulted for not "Having Backbone" if you said yes to take on an additional job role, yet you'd also be faulted for not having "Ownership" and not thinking of the entire company if you said no. Most of the senior management do not "Dive Deep" and roll up their sleeves. When they do, it'd be a big thing and you'd see emails being sent all over the place. Vested shares. It looks good on paper, but you only get all of it after 4 years. Also, they use it year after year during your yearly review to convince you why you are getting a good deal. No teamwork, no camaraderie. I remember one of the senior management once mentioning he doesn't believe in friends within the workplace because it leads to employees not wanting to perform and outdo one another. No alignment throughout the organization. Working with the corporate team is difficult, the goals are just not aligned and management does not help to make things easier. Most of the time you feel like your managers are against you just to please corporate, instead of backing you in getting things done.

2.0
Jul 24, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Great place to learn new technologies. - Team was close, and banded together against unrealistic expectations - Generous starting pay package

Cons

- Zero professional growth. - Expected to always take on more roles and responsibilities, but without a pay increase. - Bar raiser promotion system is a joke ( why would anyone work for you if they are better than 75% of the people there?)

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