Anybody ever work for Amazon?

June 2, 2006 10:29 AM

What can you tell me about your experiences, past or present, working for Amazon.com?

I may be applying for a job with them in the next few months. I’m looking for info on corporate culture, benefits, compensations, anything. I would be applying in the merchandising and buying area, but I’m interested in any experiences. Thanks!

posted by PinkStainlessTail to Work & Money (9 answers total)

here's a book written about it.
posted by nitsuj at 10:38 AM on June 2, 2006

(Really disliked the "21 Dog Years : Doing Time @ Amazon.com" book. YMMV.)
posted by jca at 10:42 AM on June 2, 2006

This was asked already.
posted by chunking express at 10:43 AM on June 2, 2006

I have known about 5 or 6 people who worked there. Among those, the two tech geeks liked it fine. The one I knew better said that he enjoyed his work, liked his coworkers, and wasn't overworked.

The one person who absolutely hated it was in some non-technical department, although I don't remember which.
posted by agropyron at 11:14 AM on June 2, 2006

It's a good company to work for. There's a tremendous interview process and I wouldn't count on much before you apply for a single position there, necessarily - in fact, I'd do some warmup interviews first since they are as brutal as any other top-tier position. That said, make it on-site and you'll get a nice night at the W. :) They treat their candidates very well.
posted by kcm at 11:23 AM on June 2, 2006

I worked for Amazon (in the UK & Seattle) for about 5 years. As companies go I found it a good place to work, i was treated quite well there, given quite a bit of freedom to learn things like Perl etc, didn't feel overworked and made enough money from stock options to put myself through university (which i'm doing now).
But then I left 2 years ago so wouldn't know if it's still the same today.
posted by tnai at 12:21 PM on June 2, 2006

I wrote a bit in the last thread. I still work as a software engineer at Amazon, and I'm still happy to answer any additional questions by e-mail. (I can also try to put you in touch with someone in your potential department, if you're interested.)
posted by mbrubeck at 5:24 PM on June 2, 2006

Just be preprared to not hear a word from the HR department after an interview. They have about the crappiest HR department I've come across (and are well known in the industry for it). Not that I cared too much as the job wasn't for me, but come on, it was just unprofessional.
posted by ShooBoo at 8:46 PM on June 2, 2006

Yeah, I did, back in about '99 or so. Working the customer service phone/email lines. The trainers were almost all a clique of humorless snobs, just waiting to cash out their stock options languishing in a job they didn't like. I did the training for a month and at the end was let know by answering machine that my services were no longer needed. No reason, no bad feedback, apparently they just hire more people than they need and fire the ones who don't quit. I'm sure it's a different system they use now, but I thought it was pretty reprehensible at the time.

There's some more stuff involved but I don't feel like going into it. Bottom line, I'm glad I was fired (for no reason). Shortly after I got a much better job. Amazon can rot.
posted by zardoz at 10:23 PM on June 2, 2006