Usually, people quality follows a normally distributed curve at any place I worked that had enougj peoole in each grouo to make it mathematically work. Amazon transfromed tgat, IMHO, into a bathtub curve, really great (and ruthless, driven, qualified) folks at the top end, then nothing, finally those only checking one of the above mentioned boxes and offsetting the others with excelling at politics. S I said, a peculiar place.

Something else I learned the very hard way: what constitutes a good or bad leader, or employee, is nost of the time highly subjective.

That being said, realizing Amazon is not a place for you before joining is the best thing you can do. I have seen my fair share of people that realized after being hired, and for them the place was hell. Careerwise, and I explicity talk about white collar folks, Amazon had no negative impact on them. But going through personell hell 50+ hours a week for months until ypu found something else or you are let go during probation is torture. I know, I had the same thing after Amazon once, it sucks and drains you dry.

> what constitutes a good or bad leader, or employee, is nost of the time highly subjective.

for myself, and the organizations i worked for, it was about results. these leaders swooped in from other prestigeous organizations, introduced toxic politics to completely disrupt existing cultures and working processes, and in the end, for all that drama, they never delivered

The worst manager I’ve ever worked with had an Amazon background. Still remember how he was hyped up before starting as an amazing senior engineering manager that’s gonna bring some grown up experience (him being in his 40s, most of the team 20s/30s) to the team.

The pettiness, backstabbing, political games and kingdom building that ensued was a nightmare. I don’t think the team recovered even after he was eventually fired about a year later.

It’s hard to consider hiring any manager coming from Amazon after that disaster.