Amazon followed that model heavily until they basically ran out of top talent wanting to work for them.
That bit really hard when AI hit and all the top engineers wouldn’t even consider working at Amazon.
That bit really hard when AI hit and all the top engineers wouldn’t even consider working at Amazon.
[0] Performance Improvement Plan aka the chapter where manger together with HR build up the convincing paper trail to fire a person.
The first three of those people seem to have got on well there and mostly enjoyed it. The fourth had a miserable 8 months. Their manager was based in a different office with a 5+ hour time difference and was a complete nightmare, and they left of their own accord to another job on about the same money but without all the extra hours, stress, and terrible management.
I’m guessing Amazon is like other big companies: the quality of your experience will depend to a very large extent on your manager.
Amazon is successful on the boring utility stuff (logistics, building data centers) but is broadly seen as unable to execute on higher value add things, which keeps it out of the top tier. The AI misses really highlighted that.
It isn’t sexy, but they are selling their proprietary technology to just about everyone. That and their market cap puts them in league with the rest of the big boys.