I don't have an official turnover figure, but I've been there 8.5 years and counting.
As far as working conditions, people show up and they work. We don't have a whole lot of toys or frills at the office. We don't get free food or drinks, but we are paid well and can afford to buy our own. The focus is on meeting customer needs and on shipping stuff that works well and doesn't break as it scales or endures heavy loads. We ship often and run fast (see the AWS blog at http://aws.typepad.com to get an idea of how fast).
Teams are responsible for building and running services, and for fixing them when they break. Many teams measure the number of high-priority tickets generated by their services over the course of a year and set year-over-year goals to drive the number down. As a dev, you might get to carry a pager from time to time, and you will learn to build services that are so robust that they never wake you up :-).
We are really happy with the success of AWS to date, and that's why we are hiring.
As a new employee you'll be put to work right away on something that is of real and immediate value to the company. You'll learn on the job and you'll get to rub shoulders with really sharp people.
Pay is competitive by industry standards and is generally a mix of cash and stock grants. We also have a full suite of benefits.
Thanks for the great answer! It sounds very professional. I've read most of Steve Yegge's old blog posts, and was always struck by how Amazon's culture is one that values solid technical skills and experience.
As far as working conditions, people show up and they work. We don't have a whole lot of toys or frills at the office. We don't get free food or drinks, but we are paid well and can afford to buy our own. The focus is on meeting customer needs and on shipping stuff that works well and doesn't break as it scales or endures heavy loads. We ship often and run fast (see the AWS blog at http://aws.typepad.com to get an idea of how fast).
Teams are responsible for building and running services, and for fixing them when they break. Many teams measure the number of high-priority tickets generated by their services over the course of a year and set year-over-year goals to drive the number down. As a dev, you might get to carry a pager from time to time, and you will learn to build services that are so robust that they never wake you up :-).
We are really happy with the success of AWS to date, and that's why we are hiring.
As a new employee you'll be put to work right away on something that is of real and immediate value to the company. You'll learn on the job and you'll get to rub shoulders with really sharp people.
Pay is competitive by industry standards and is generally a mix of cash and stock grants. We also have a full suite of benefits.