Vivek Ravisankar’s Web

Yes, it’s true! Today will be my last working day at Amazon! I never expected it to be so quick (14 months) and never thought I would start something on my own after this! It’s been exciting,fun,happening,interesting,mindblowing – all in the same breath!

Why is it the *best* MNC to work for ?

• Amazon has got the right mix of fun and smartness embedded in their employees, you have no other choice but to just admire.
• The amount of visibility you get while working on a project is tremendous. I doubt any other company would have freshers directly interacting with top management people and principal engineers
• Exposure to the latest technology from a wide variety of streams in Computer Science. You get to work on Distributed Systems, Databases, UI (CSS/HTML,Perl,Ruby), OS (Kindle), etc. At the end of the day you will have such a wide breadth of knowledge
• Extremely customer centric and focused – *Never* do you see Amazon doing stuff just for the heck of it. Every project you are involved in, has its own USP and unless and otherwise it’s something novel, Amazon doesn’t put it’s step forward
• Fun Atmosphere – Even though you can see a geeky halo at the back, you can talk to anyone about anything – T20, Sachin (vs) Sehwag, many more… There is absolutely no barrier to talk to people. I never imagined I would refer to my manager as Dude(always) and even give bumps on his bday
• Startup Flavor – You don’t work on a product for 2 years to see it’s release. The deadlines are little hard making you learn more and deliver more in quick time. C’mon there is a production push almost every week!
• I am pretty sure you would have heard about the compensation and perks . Makes you wonder whether you are really worth that much!
• Guess how they celebrated recession? – hired a whole bunch of SDE’s and formed a couple of new teams here! Have you ever heard Amazon firing people?

There would have only been 2 reasons why I could have possibly thought of parting from this organization.

• To pursue my graduate studies

(OR)

• To start my own startup.

After pondering over deeply and consulting with a lot of senior people, I thought I should do justice to both my conscience and to Amazon. Hence, I have taken the bold move of starting on my own with my friends, and time will tell how it works!

Altogether it was an amazing experience to work here. To explain my current position, its a very tough state to be in – you really love the job but still you need to go! At the end of the day, I would really really really miss the people out here and hope to stay in touch!

I still remember when the HR sent me a pre-placement form during my campus recruitment. It said “Amazon is looking to hire superstars!”. I chuckled then, but I now realize, you guys are really superstars! I have worked hard, had fun and should be making history soon ! Good luck with all the projects,keep making Amazon proud and more importantly stay connected! (vivmbbs AT GMail)