Thank you, I appreciate you saying this. I don't want to give the impression it's all awful though. We are reasonably well compensated (you do a lot better if you're based in certain countries than others).
There are part of this job that were a lot harder than I could have imagined. The aim of my earlier comment was to make this clear to people considering AWS. When the hiring manager interviews you and mentions there's "an on-call component to this job", realise that it _can_ be severe. The on-call time is also unpaid; it's also very difficult to spend significant time on improving this situation, if that's possible at all. Other comments have done a better job of describing this.
There are parts of the job that are fantastic. You have access to some outstanding engineers (this is also the case at many other companies though). Almost all of the principal engineers I've interacted with have been very generous with their time and knowledge. I thoroughly enjoy the Principals of Amazons talks, and subsequent discussions. I've also had the opportunity to be able to look very deeply at technical problems (this is a direct result of my manager). Having worked at a number of SMEs before, this wouldn't have been the case. You also work on systems being used by so many people (this is mostly wonderful in hindsight), which having worked on products that have evaporated into the ether in the past, is rewarding.
It's not for everyone, and it's certainly not forever at AWS. My guess is I'll walk away with some scars and a much better idea of what I want I don't want to spend my time doing.
Complaints like this, besides being tedious and breaking the site guidelines, usually also end by being uncollected off-topic garbage when the original comment gets corrective upvotes, as yours has.
That's not appropriate, as pg made clear back at the beginning:
Empty comments can be ok if they're positive. There's nothing wrong with submitting a comment saying just "Thanks." What we especially discourage are comments that are empty and negative—comments that are mere name-calling.
