The smartest people I ever met in AMZN kept their distance, saw it for what it is, clocked in /out as expected and got out when the opportunity arose. The language employed in AMZN is for my mind "doublespeak", its the most disingenuous company I've ever come across.
As for hiring, promotions, etc .... I was there a while and it did improve towards the end but Christ on a bike, there are a lot of people stealing a living in that company. I was dealing with "managers" at most levels that I wouldn't employ to work for me.
It wasn't for me and so I took redundancy when offered, I think its an awful company.
I joined Amazon for selfish reasons. It got me sponsorship and paid relocation the UK, which was an objective. It allowed me to get back to operations and swerve a legal career I wasn't too excited about.
I stayed at Amazon because it practiced and attempted to vindicate and defend its leadership principles. There were a few really good years where I felt like we were managing to improve the culture even while growing.
Then it all changed. The pandemic paused a lot of great cultural progress, then the c-suite managed to bungle strategy badly enough that costs became a worry for shareholders. That led to paused efforts dying on the vine. Then we changed CEOs and careened over the cliff of profit-obsessed and miserable micromanagement. The LPs are dead now, even if their skeletons continue to pace around.
Some of what you describe I definitely saw and agree with. The company needed to do a much better job of training and developing managers. But it also needed to give them a culture and policy environment allowing them to deliver a positive experience for people. That didn't happen, and now we're accelerating in the wrong direction.
Thanks for reading and engaging. I wish you'd had a better experience. I think both of us will be extremely happy we've moved on as we watch what comes next.
Interesting and in my experience LARGELY CORRECT.
The smartest people I ever met in AMZN kept their distance, saw it for what it is, clocked in /out as expected and got out when the opportunity arose. The language employed in AMZN is for my mind "doublespeak", its the most disingenuous company I've ever come across.
As for hiring, promotions, etc .... I was there a while and it did improve towards the end but Christ on a bike, there are a lot of people stealing a living in that company. I was dealing with "managers" at most levels that I wouldn't employ to work for me.
It wasn't for me and so I took redundancy when offered, I think its an awful company.
I joined Amazon for selfish reasons. It got me sponsorship and paid relocation the UK, which was an objective. It allowed me to get back to operations and swerve a legal career I wasn't too excited about.
I stayed at Amazon because it practiced and attempted to vindicate and defend its leadership principles. There were a few really good years where I felt like we were managing to improve the culture even while growing.
Then it all changed. The pandemic paused a lot of great cultural progress, then the c-suite managed to bungle strategy badly enough that costs became a worry for shareholders. That led to paused efforts dying on the vine. Then we changed CEOs and careened over the cliff of profit-obsessed and miserable micromanagement. The LPs are dead now, even if their skeletons continue to pace around.
Some of what you describe I definitely saw and agree with. The company needed to do a much better job of training and developing managers. But it also needed to give them a culture and policy environment allowing them to deliver a positive experience for people. That didn't happen, and now we're accelerating in the wrong direction.
Thanks for reading and engaging. I wish you'd had a better experience. I think both of us will be extremely happy we've moved on as we watch what comes next.