There are certainly some toxic teams out there, just like there are in any large org. I think an even bigger factor is the fact that Amazon is an enormous vertically-integrated monopoly that:

- abuses its market position to run competitors out of business

- mistreats its most vulnerable, low-level employees

For many of us, that's a moral dealbreaker. But there are certainly some great teams and interesting projects in the SDE space if that's what you want!

I wonder how much of this is the perception of Amazon warehouse workers being transferred over to Amazon technology workers. I've heard a ton of bad things about the former, but the folks I personally know who work at Amazon / AWS as tech workers all seem to be happy with it. Of course, how Amazon treats its warehouse workers is an indictment on the overall company, so I think I'd have a difficult time choosing to work there.

I don't think it started with warehouse workers, there was a famous NYT article talking about office workers at Amazon where entire teams would leave a meeting in tears:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-...

Among folks I know in Seattle, Amazon had a bad reputation as a burnout factory before those stories about the warehouses ever really came out.

I know two acquaintances that are SDEs that worked at Amazon and hated it. One of them was "forced" to work until 3-4 AM. His manager said to him, "How can you even think of sleeping right now?". Fortunately he found a new position at Microsoft. The other SDE feels like a cog in a machine and hates it so much he's going back to his home country.

You’re always a cog in the machine. If you think otherwise you’re being naive. No matter where you work, if you got hit by a bus tomorrow, your company would send “thoughts and prayers” to your family and have an open req for you before your body got cold.

I definitely can’t imagine “being forced” to do anything at a job too often before I’m looking for another job.

But there was the suicide of an office worker in Seattle.

There are more than 3 suicides every day in Seattle, I don't see how 1 suicide of a person that happened to work for Amazon is really telling of anything.

I am not aware of anyone working in any other FAANG tech space attempting suicide after sending an email to the CEO about transferring teams.

https://thenextweb.com/news/amazon-employee-email-note