[larkfofty]

I'm an ex-Amazon software engineer who worked in AWS for a couple years and pretty much everything in this article and comments rings true to me and lines up with my personal experience. I won't say much about the PIPs and the brutal oncall rotations because that has been written about enough already, but I do want to express that working at Amazon was devastating for my mental health.

I was more stressed than I have ever been in my life. I had to start seeing a therapist specifically to help me with the constant anxiety I had about my job. I had to see a doctor to get anti-anxiety medication. I tried all the things people suggest: diet, exercise, therapy, medication, meditation, nothing was helping with the escalating stress and anxiety I had about the job. After a lot of internal debate I quit with nothing else lined up. I just needed to get out.

I took a 30% pay cut to join a new company and I couldn't be happier. Sure every job has its occasional stresses and pain points, and this one is no different, but I'm learning that constant stress and anxiety about your job is not normal and at least for me not worth the money.

I still have a small heart attack every time I hear someone's ringtone go off which is the same ringtone I had set on pong paging.