From what I hear it is almost entirely based on your team. If you are on a team that is working on a product that is forward facing or requires constant uptime (AWS, eCommerce platform.. etc) then you can expect to share responsibility for critical bugs or catastrophic failure. Kindle dev- not so much.
As far as I know, this isn't as bad as everyone tends to think. I kind of accept it along with the engineering culture- I prefer to be responsible for my projects rather than wait til 9am to put out fires. But I may be biased as a young, single, and so very poor student considering working for Amazon. If anyone has a better idea of the work/life balance at Amazon, I'd be grateful to hear more.
aaronbrethorst hit the nail on the head- there is a definite benefit to starting at a large software company. For me and my friends whom are looking for our first FTE positions, startups are daunting due to impostor syndrome. In my case, I don't know if I am skilled enough to jump right into a niche startup and be relied upon so heavily to ship. Amazon, Microsoft, etc provide a great place to learn from very intelligent people in the industry.
As far as I know, this isn't as bad as everyone tends to think. I kind of accept it along with the engineering culture- I prefer to be responsible for my projects rather than wait til 9am to put out fires. But I may be biased as a young, single, and so very poor student considering working for Amazon. If anyone has a better idea of the work/life balance at Amazon, I'd be grateful to hear more.
aaronbrethorst hit the nail on the head- there is a definite benefit to starting at a large software company. For me and my friends whom are looking for our first FTE positions, startups are daunting due to impostor syndrome. In my case, I don't know if I am skilled enough to jump right into a niche startup and be relied upon so heavily to ship. Amazon, Microsoft, etc provide a great place to learn from very intelligent people in the industry.