Not so much the pay, as the wonders it works for your resume. Prior to Amazon, I tried applying to Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. Nothing. After Amazon, recruiters from those companies started contacting me.
I've had recruiters from 3 of the big 4 reach out over the past few years without having worked at one. It's hard to generalize across recruiters and the four companies, but I think they pay more attention to your number of years than where they were at in the early recruitment stage.
