One thing that wasn't mentioned here is Amazon will tell you you're interviewing for a SDE3 role, but when the offer comes, it says SDE2. If you ask about it, they'll give you some story about how "oh. we have to hire you as a 2 because of budgetary reasons, but we're giving you a 3 salary. you'll be automatically pro.oted to a 4 after 6 months."
This is, of course, complete bullshit.
No one is "automatically" promoted to an SDE3. You have to propose and complete a "project" - which you aren't allowed to complete on company time. Usually it's around 60-120 additional hours. Then there's a chance you might get promoted.
Amazon itself is filled with a collection of projects that people wrote in 60 or so hours, and are completely undocumented. Most are orphaned after a year.
Most SDE2s I knew who went through this process and completed their project weren't promoted and moved onto another company.
This is, of course, complete bullshit.
No one is "automatically" promoted to an SDE3. You have to propose and complete a "project" - which you aren't allowed to complete on company time. Usually it's around 60-120 additional hours. Then there's a chance you might get promoted.
Amazon itself is filled with a collection of projects that people wrote in 60 or so hours, and are completely undocumented. Most are orphaned after a year.
Most SDE2s I knew who went through this process and completed their project weren't promoted and moved onto another company.