I have a friend who lasted more than 2 years which amazed me but then his compensation _went_down_ because of Amazon's crazy comp structure works.

I have another friend who was offered a job there and turned them down, then the hiring manager fired back with "Oh c'mon, you just have to last a year here and then you can put Amazon on your resume" which is hilarious and totally fucked up.

"We aren't going to pretend that you will actually like working here but if you suffer for about a year, it's gonna do wonders for attracting future employers"

I often wonder if Amazon wouldn't actually be more successful if they treated their people better. I think there's a strong sentiment of Emperor Bezos' New Clothes and survivorship bias that has Amazon leadership convinced that being evil bastards is the only reason/way the company can be successful.

There's a built in assumption of stock growth in the grant they give you, and after year 2 the bonus dries up so it's your base of 160 + whatever the equity is. Year 2 -> 3 comp drop is not uncommon.

Amazon also has this weird 5%, 15%, 40% & 40% vesting schedule. This tells me most people are not making it past 2 years.

The early years are generally accompanied by huge cash bonuses so it evens out against the back loaded equity.

The difference is that Amazon (unlike the other giants) doesn't have a moat.

Facebook and Google basically have one product that is a money machine which funds everything else. The rest is mostly window dressing.

Amazon does not have the luxury of being able to rest.

I think you will find a similar culture at Netflix, which is also in a competitive market.

Plenty of places are hiring engineers for remote roles now, including my employer. If you're able to carve out some time to look around it might be worth it.