It's a good plan. You can learn from some great engineers. But you definitely need other experiences, as Amazon's internal tooling feels like 2005 and isn't very transferable knowledge. (Why they don't spend more money on this is beyond me, the terrible tooling really ruins productivity.)

Which is a very sensible plan to have. My biggest mistake was to not have an exit strategy I followed from day one. But than LVL 5, or 4, at Amazon isn't that bad. You have probably more responsibility than a LVL-6 equivalent at any other non-FAANG corp.

Heh, the guy who referred me even let me in on that common exit plan ;)

I agree with you on Amazon not being so bad. I had a lot of autonomy and was asked to both be an engineer and build technical solutions and own processes end-to-end (which included some project management.) It was a great experience!

Yeah, I wouldn't miss it neither! Just not for long term, unless you are one of the few exceptions.

Nice guy that referred you! Not everyone is that open, usually people learn it the hard way.

For L6+ my point is more they remain because of the amount of authority/resources given and better fitness of the culture. Also I think there are many people stuck in L5 with 5+ years of tenure.

That’s a good point that some people leave by plan. On the other hands there are tons of L4/5s get into “PIP” within a year or less and generally we know Amazon holds a lower bar at interviewing, that’s why I think it “fail fast”