Pros
1. Big problems - At Amazon, no problem is pushed aside as too hard to solve. In fact, they go after the really hard and insolvable problems and then throw talent, time and resources towards solving them. In my time there, pretty much every team I worked with was solving a "holy grail" problem in their field and actually making progress towards it. There is no dearth of interesting projects, teams or ideas to work on. 2. Structure and thinking - There is a lot of document writing at Amazon, in case you have not heard. While some people do not like that part of the job much, I think the required meetings and documents force every employee to truly think about their job and what they are doing. Producing the write-ups and getting them ready to face up to a room of very detailed scrutiny and questioning forces you to think through every aspect of your business. it is really a very valuable skill that Amazon does a great job of developing. 3. Ownership - Amazon treats you like an owner - a grown up. You have a job to do and you are empowered to do it. There are checks and balances, of course, but you truly do own your business. You make the assessments, take the risks, justify your decisions and ultimately reap the benefits or learn from your mistakes and move on. There are not many fall-backs and layers to catch you if you are not moving your business forward. Not a lot of finger poitning for failures either, that I saw. In fact, I would say that if you do not act like an owner, you will not be successful at Amazon. You have to embrace the responsibility and run with it. 4. Smart People - You'll hear this a lot and personally, I think some of the talk is overblown but Amazon does indeed have some very, very smart and talented people working there. I know its a cliche, but I did learn a lot from most people I worked with there - and again, I say, most, not all :-) are just genuinely nice people. I would work again with these people without hesitation. I think the leadership there is especially great - just really smart, experienced people with sharp instincts, great insights and lots of ambition. It was really fun working with the folks I did.
Cons
1. Structure and documentation - What I said above about structure and documentation, while its great to create clarity and shape your thinking, it can get in the way of actually doing your work. Everybody at Amazon is juggling so much and constantly writing high quality documents can get exhausting. The secret here, as in any job, is to balance the strategic against the operational and prioritize ruthlessly. I cannot say I was always effective at it - but I tried till my last day and now have the benefit of hind sight as well :-) 2. Culture - I think some people could have a tough time adjusting to the culture - its tough, expectations are high and there is not always a lot of hand holding ( in fact, it would be very rare). I think you have to embrace or at least accept it and focus on the positives. Your team makes a huge difference - so hopefully you're lucky and end up with a great manager and great team mates. If you're looking for free food and onsite massages - you certainly will be disappointed. You can end up overworked and resentful if you are not good at prioritizing your work and your life and making trade-offs. 3. People/Politics - I started to see a lot of the "we are the best in the world" mentality start to show up. I don't believe that everyone that works at Amazon is a genius and seeing that attitude crop up every now and then was annoying. Every company has inside politics and even though Amazon tries really hard to believe there is no politics, there is certainly that to deal with. No more than any other company that I can tell, but it can get frustrating when you're working so hard and so long to get derailed by that kind of thing.