Big Tech | What’s It Like Working At Amazon, Google & Microsoft?

When it comes to career paths after business school, technology is right up there at the very top of the sectors that students tend to target when looking for opportunities. 

For some time now, tech has ranked among the three most-popular industries for prospective business school students, along with finance and consulting.

Like those industries, working in tech offers the chance to work with multinational companies and earn a competitive salary. However, as a relative newcomer compared to finance and consulting, the technology sector is often associated with a different approach to working. 

Work-life balance, autonomous working practices, and unique employee benefits are some of the associations typically held with working in the technology sector. But, are they true? Just what is the culture actually like when working at Amazon or Google? 

To find out what it’s like to work in big tech, BusinessBecause spoke with six business school graduates currently working at Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Here are some of the reflections they gave on their experience of tech working culture. 

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Working at Amazon involves… 

Being part of a results-driven culture 

“It's not about getting things approved, it's about getting things done. If I’m bringing in a process of improvement, it's not required for me to ask someone or get approval. I usually tend to have open conversations with my manager, or my manager’s manager—in that way it has been really nice.

“It's an open conversation setup. The hierarchy is there, but it's there for a reason—to move things faster. On a day to day basis the structure is flat.”

Aiswarya Choppali, senior program manager, Amazon (MBA, IESE Business School) 

A unique approach to meetings

“We use a lot of docs. I use Google Docs to communicate results or progress, and not so much Powerpoint presentations. We pretty much never use Powerpoint—that's a common and well known thing about Amazon—and that requires a lot of structure to really think about your ideas.

"Communication is also very relevant. I don't mean being super eloquent, because I don't consider myself super eloquent, it's more about being structured and able to convey the message you need to convey by saying more with less." 

Javier Rodriguez Del Campo, senior product manager, Amazon (MBA, Harvard Business School) 

Working at Google involves…

A collaborative environment 

“Google culture is very open and friendly. So, if you ever have any type of client problem that you want to double check, you can do that—there's a lot of teamwork.

“Teamwork is a big, important part [of working at Google], so you need to be a person that likes to work with others because there aren’t a lot of solo projects or individual jobs, you are constantly working with people.”

Carles Vineta, growth manager, Google (MBA, IESE Business School) 

The ability to make an impact 

“Diversity and inclusion is what attracted me to Google. For the longest time I thought I would start off working at an NGO, but then I realized that, though NGOs do impactful work, sometimes they need funding or because of limited funding their impact isn’t so much. 

“Companies like Google can scale impact because of the funding they have within the company to support all of these causes.”

Vinceya Edwin, inclusion program manager, Google (MBA, Asia School of Business) 

Working at Microsoft involves… 

Collaboration across the organization 

“Cross functional collaboration is huge. You need to be able to speak the language of the engineers, which is going to be more technical jargon, but then have a conversation with the marketing team, where you might not go as far into the weeds but speak on the value proposition instead. 

“Public speaking skills, facilitation skills during meetings, and things of that nature are huge.”

Wilson Darko, product manager, Microsoft (MBA, Columbia Business School)  

A 'go the extra mile' culture 

“I meet so many people in my company who have a very interesting side project going on and they bring it with them [into the company].

“There are a lot of people who are very proactive in their lives, with volunteering activities and other stuff, and they bring that to Microsoft and then organize things where other people can contribute. I feel like that's an element which is very front and center in tech, or at least at Microsoft.”

Sneha Boobna, business lead, Microsoft (MBA, Mannheim Business School) 

For more info about what it's like to work in tech, the perks and salaries you could gain, and tips on how to successfully land a job in the technology sector, download our Careers Guide.