Sorry that the OP has experienced this. I work for AWS (SA), have heard about this but does not seems as prevalent at AWS SDE teams as in Amazon teams. Agreed that there is a huge risk to loose skills and then it is hard to find an exciting job. Another point to have into consideration is how massively underpaid most folks are. It is common to hear stories of folks that move to the competition after carefully preparing for interviews and get good offer. Often AWS managers match or go above. Recently one of my colleagues left to the competition to rejoin AWS 3 months later with a 40k pay raise (same job, same team, same work output from the person). Knowing what i know after working at AWS for several years, be mindful that the company is so big that you might be the one doing crappy or low value work. Moreover, if you decide to take the risk of loosing your skillset, make sure you negotiate well and keep coding on the side.