I often thought about quitting my FANG job (not Amazon though) and leaving my salary behind for a less stressful job with better work-life balance, as we so often read about.<p>But then I realized it’s not illegal to manage my own stress and set my own work-life balance, and keep my salary. The company could fire me, if it’s not enough for them, but so far they haven’t.<p>I think this is often overlooked. People set artificial expectations on themselves and say it’s the culture. Maybe at Amazon it is. In my experience it wasn’t.
I noticed this while at Amazon two distinct cohorts, many who quit within a year and those who don’t tend to stay 6+ years. This could be the case at other places too.<p>But at Amazon it’s super critical and luck to start off in a team that’s supportive, isn’t in critical path and isn’t struggling with operational/oncall load. There are teams I had seen which would chew out new hires within 6 months.
I know a guy who quit Amazon a while back after having a complete breakdown. He had to take 6 months out to get himself back together. Also as a large customer of AWS as well the bits of culture and technical knowledge that leaks out from their staff and the problems we've had getting simple stuff fixed via support suggests the place is a complete mess behind the scenes.<p>It's enough to tell them to sod off when they reached out to me.
Sounds like he read the room and left before he became the designated sacrifice to the performance review gods, so the rest of the team could work themselves to death for another year.
I don't think I get it. There're stressful jobs everywhere, small companies can be even worse - specially when you have to deal to with clients (or owners) directly.<p>My first job was in a body shop consulting firm that I quit after one year, very stressful in my opinion. But a colleague - who was onboarded with me - loved the job and is now leading the team.<p>I think it's all about recognizing your limits and boundaries and find a job that fits it, no need to complain about everything. What is bad for you might be good for others and the other way around.