I currently work at Amazon as an engineer(NA), joined around 1 year 5 months ago. My experience has been quite different than the one linked here and commonly talked about on the Blind community so I'm posting here to add a data point.
Maybe I'm just lucky but having first hand experience around my team and the 5 teams surrounding it, things are very manageable. Our oncall is a bit hectic but you're not oncall that frequently for it to bother me personally. I work on projects that have a lot of impact and challenge me technically. The key here is to manage expectations very clearly before the beginning of a new project, this sets you up for success for the next -2-3 months in implementation.
Overall, I feel like I don't overwork myself, my manager cares about me and my mental health and supports me in growing as a professional. The only time I've seen people work a ton of hours is if they slacked off , which then becomes a problem they brought onto themselves. If there is a crunch time that was a result of something out of our hands, my manager is empathetic to that and encourages us to take time off after the project is done.
I'm a happy person to be working at Amazon, under my current manager and I see no reason to change that in the near future for me. Amazon is not for everyone. While my manager cares about me, he also has certain standards in the quality and timely delivery of value from me. Working 9-5 is entirely possible at least in my org, and most people that I know do work 9-5, but those 9-5 hours are going to be busy and you have to prioritize well.
If you are a completely new in the field, want to coast or chill I think there are better places than Amazon to work.
Maybe I'm just lucky but having first hand experience around my team and the 5 teams surrounding it, things are very manageable. Our oncall is a bit hectic but you're not oncall that frequently for it to bother me personally. I work on projects that have a lot of impact and challenge me technically. The key here is to manage expectations very clearly before the beginning of a new project, this sets you up for success for the next -2-3 months in implementation.
Overall, I feel like I don't overwork myself, my manager cares about me and my mental health and supports me in growing as a professional. The only time I've seen people work a ton of hours is if they slacked off , which then becomes a problem they brought onto themselves. If there is a crunch time that was a result of something out of our hands, my manager is empathetic to that and encourages us to take time off after the project is done.
I'm a happy person to be working at Amazon, under my current manager and I see no reason to change that in the near future for me. Amazon is not for everyone. While my manager cares about me, he also has certain standards in the quality and timely delivery of value from me. Working 9-5 is entirely possible at least in my org, and most people that I know do work 9-5, but those 9-5 hours are going to be busy and you have to prioritize well.
If you are a completely new in the field, want to coast or chill I think there are better places than Amazon to work.
Edit 1: grammar/spelling