[themacguffinman]

I don't know that you should continue since it is severely affecting you but I doubt that focusing on other people's tier rankings of Amazon engs is healthy or beneficial in any way. A lot of people overdo the whole "don't listen to what other people say" (external judgments can be valuable & insightful), but naturally it's possible to overdo the opposite.

AFAICT, Amazon has a terrible reputation because they are abusive and are known to hire-to-fire. If you don't feel abused and you've stuck around long enough to be confident that you weren't just hired to fill a firing quota, then these criticisms don't really apply.

Basically all big companies are large enough to offer a mix of good & bad experiences, prevailing reputation is going to be an average of that mix. But your own experience isn't an average, you don't have to measure it against some public reputation. Public reputation is for outsiders, it's for people to forecast what outcomes are likely before joining. It's not for you. When you can see sunny skies with your own eyes, you don't look at the weather forecast.