Amazon was terribly run a decade ago, in 2006. At the time my manager had training to be a prison guard- that was his intended career. He didn't know how to run a spreadsheet well, and he was managing programmers. His boss was an ex-DMV employee, literally, and had carried the same sort of passive hostility over.

Amazon is a retailer that thinks it is a tech company and so its management is the kind of management you want at Walmart to keep the "associates" from pilfering the goods.

At least in 2006 it was that way.

I think the really interesting thing is, how can a company that is so notoriously terrible still be able to hire as many employees as they want? How is it that so many young (eg: 19-24 year old) engineers think that getting Amazon on their resume (or Facebook, Google, etc.) is somehow a big feather? Are further employees really that impressed by the name of the companies on the resume?

When I was that age I certainly did think that a big name meant something but after I got to the other side- where I'm interviewing people- I realized that it's a huge mistake to try and judge whether you should hire someone with these kinds of correlations (including college and GPA).

Amazon was the most terrible work experience of my career. I strongly urge everyone I meet who is considering them to avoid them.