While traveling the world, I feel in love with Cape Town so much, that I decided to apply for a job at Amazon since their recruiters were constantly emailing me anyways. EC2 was started in Cape Town and that office does mainly AWS support tools, but not as much EC2 work any more.

I do not remember the details too much, but it was something like $84K for my first year, after stock and all that nonsense. The salary is not much compared to the US, but very good for South Africa. However, the offer was in Rands, which has since collapsed. I would have lost about 30% of my salary when converting to dollars.

I did not take the job for various reasons, with very few having to do with Amazon. The team itself was excellent and I regret not joining, but I am glad I did not partly because of collapse of the Rand.

I still miss Cape Town. One day I will return for another visit.

EDIT: I can provide more detailed numbers if people are interested. Would need to dig up the offer letter. Very few Americans must have applied like I did, so Amazon could very easily figure out who I am. Hey, I loved your team, it just was not meant to be!