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Amazon Web Services

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Beware of the blame game and PIP culture - Partner Development Manager Amazon Web Services Employee Review

2.0
Jul 12, 2023
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Good pay, name recognition, ability to make lots of industry connections.

Cons

At AWS, and Amazon in general, you will at a risk of PIP every six months, regardless of your past performance or contribution. AWS has a blame-game culture. When something doesn't go right, they will find a scape-goat. And if you are at L6 or lower, you can become a target of that blame game easily. Once your manager identifies you as a target, they will start to systematically and deliberately give you written "suggestions" or "feedback" for how you can improve. They will make it sound like this is for your own good, but the ultimate goal is to get rid of you. Over weeks or months, the negative feedback will be cranked up. Your manager will start finding faults at everything you do and will start telling you how you are missing on the (utterly BS) Leadership Principles. One fine day they will email you, giving you a list of tasks to do over the next few weeks. Congratulations -- You are on a "Focus" (your manager won't use this word)! The focus may continue for a few weeks or months. During this time, the written criticism of your work will ramp up. One fine day, your manager will tell you that we need to take the next step in the process - "Pivot". Long story short, this entire process will leave you feeling drained and worthless. In the end the mental agony of going through the Focus-Pivot process makes you wonder if the pay is really worth it all. You will be particularly vulnerable to this process during the first two years. So even if you join AWS, keep your resume updated and keep your options open.

Explore other reviews about Amazon Web Services

5.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Great team when you have a manager and full team that works well and collaborates well. Stock is great. And you know when youre doing well, the pay increase is roughly the same as everyone else.

Cons

Low perks compared to other FAANG companies and most teams have high turn over

3.0
Jun 15, 2026
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Unmatched Scale: You get to work on systems that handle millions of requests per second. The technical challenges are genuinely fascinating and great for your career. Smart Colleagues: You are surrounded by incredibly sharp engineers. You will learn more here in one year than in three years at most other companies.

Cons

Work-Life Balance (WLB): Highly dependent on your team, but generally poor. On-call rotations can be brutal, and there is a constant pressure to deliver more, faster. Burnout Culture: The "Day 1" mentality means things move fast, but it also leads to high turnover. The stack-ranking and PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) culture creates unnecessary anxiety.

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