careerladder.fyi › Career paths › Amazon Web Services (AWS)
How people got jobs at Amazon Web Services (AWS)
What 84 people did before they joined Amazon Web Services (AWS): where they worked, what they studied, which role they came in through, and how long it took.
84
people in our data got there
50%
had a graduate degree first (of those listing one)
11
typical years since first job
- The most common step right before: from other companies (55%).
- The most common way in was Software engineering (20% joined in that kind of role).
- Of those who list their education, 50% had a graduate degree before arriving and 5% a PhD.
- The typical person arrived about 11 years after their first job.
- The most common earlier employer: Amazon (12% had worked there).
How Amazon Web Services (AWS) compares
- 5% had a PhD, below the 18% across other Big Tech companies.
- 50% had a graduate degree, below the 63% across other Big Tech companies, the 3rd-lowest of the 12 in our data.
- 23% came straight from Big Tech, above the 14% across other Big Tech companies, the highest of the 12 in our data.
- People arrived about 3 years later in their careers than at the typical one of the other Big Tech companies (11 vs 8 years since their first job).
Among people who list their education; places with at least 10 such people.
Show as a table
| People listing education | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Apple | 50 | 78% |
| 16 | 75% | |
| Meta | 103 | 71% |
| 105 | 69% | |
| NVIDIA | 36 | 67% |
| Amazon | 54 | 63% |
| Adobe | 43 | 58% |
| Microsoft | 97 | 58% |
| Palantir Technologies | 36 | 50% |
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) (this page) | 44 | 50% |
| Salesforce | 28 | 43% |
| Oracle | 30 | 37% |
Show as a table
| Median years | ||
|---|---|---|
| Adobe | 12 yrs | |
| Salesforce | 11 yrs | |
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) (this page) | 11 yrs | |
| NVIDIA | 10 yrs | |
| Apple | 10 yrs | |
| Meta | 8 yrs | |
| Palantir Technologies | 8 yrs | |
| 7 yrs | ||
| Microsoft | 7 yrs | |
| Oracle | 7 yrs | |
| Amazon | 6 yrs | |
| 6 yrs |
Which role they joined in
Kinds of role with fewer than 5 people are combined into "All other roles".
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| All other roles | 28 | 33% |
| Software engineering | 17 | 20% |
| Sales & business development | 16 | 19% |
| Business & operations | 9 | 11% |
| Research | 7 | 8% |
| Data science & ML | 7 | 8% |
What they did right before
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| From other companies | 46 | 55% |
| From Big Tech | 19 | 23% |
| From banks & Fortune 500 | 9 | 11% |
| Other | 10 | 12% |
Where they worked before
A person can count under more than one employer.
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 10 | 12% |
| IBM | 9 | 11% |
| Microsoft | 8 | 10% |
| Dell Technologies | 5 | 6% |
| 5 | 6% |
Education
Among the 44 of 84 people who list their education.
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's | 22 | 50% |
| Master's | 14 | 32% |
| MBA | 6 | 14% |
| PhD | 2 | 5% |
How much experience they had
Among the 80 of 84 people with an earlier job listed.
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Under 1 year | 1 | 1% |
| 1-3 years | 8 | 10% |
| 3-5 years | 6 | 8% |
| 5-8 years | 15 | 19% |
| 8-12 years | 16 | 20% |
| 12+ years | 34 | 42% |
Where would your path lead?
Paste your LinkedIn or resume and see the ladders people like you climbed to Amazon Web Services (AWS), and how each step changes your chances.
Plan my path to Amazon Web Services (AWS) →
Paste your LinkedIn or resume and see the ladders people like you climbed to Amazon Web Services (AWS), and how each step changes your chances.
Plan my path to Amazon Web Services (AWS) →
Related
How these numbers are made. From 3k+ public career histories collected for careerladder.fyi (dated jobs, degrees and publications). The collection was built around particular employers, so people who reached well-known tech, AI and finance employers are over-represented: read shares as "among people in this dataset", not as hiring odds. Names are shown only when at least 5 people are behind them; smaller groups are combined into "Other". No individual profile is shown. Updated November 2026.