I think it really depends on the team you're on at Amazon. (well, the vesting, free drinks etc doesn't).

I never found the NYT article to be even slightly representative of my time at Amazon, and the group I was in at the time made additional changes to help improve morale that really worked. I believe you can find a good, or bad, team to work on at Amazon, and I assume the same is true of other big companies too (I have worked at another big company and it was true there too).

If anyone here honestly believes free food and office decor stack up as benefits right alongside retirement benefits and vesting schedules, please take a step back and evaluate your life. I'd rather live on a software developer's salary with no 401k access and a 6 year vesting cliff than live on 2/3rd the salary with immediate vesting and a generous 401k match.

What's your math?

In year 0-6, I would think the latter case comes up better, assuming (which is definitely true at like, all large tech companies) that yearly stock + 401k match (not even touching tax benefits) is better than 1/3 of your salary?

I would think stock + 401k > 1/3 salary basically (this was true for me at Workday, anyway)