I understand where you're coming from as I've worked both in and outside of SV (Amazon isn't in SV but shares the culture). Though it may look like they're asking for a lot, it has to do with the demanding nature of the jobs they're working.

To answer your question about being woke up in the middle of the night, there is no such thing as a "shift". Most of us are expected to work at the very least 60 hour work weeks (no additional pay, everyone is salaried), with many jobs beings 'always on', extending our work into nights and weekends with take home laptops. A typical (though not universal) day at Amazon is like follows:

- Wake up and open laptop to check emails and get some work in.

- Shower, eat, etc. before going into work.

- Work until around 7-8pm.

- Come home and eat, then open up laptop to work (maybe with the tv on in the background) up until going to bed.

Waking hours are pretty much consumed by work, and on weekends a lot of people will do a couple hours here and there and between other things, to stay current with issues.

If people in SV look like they're asking for a lot or getting upset over petty things, it's because of the sheer soul sucking amount of work that's being imposed on them. Small conveniences like a catered cafe makes the difference in helping them work through it.

That culture sounds depressing. Not all companies (in and out of SV) work like that. The good thing is that you likely have a skill in high demand and can find a company with a better work culture. There are definitely many that value work/life balance and still pay well.

It's definitely not an ideal life, but seems to be increasingly the norm among individual contributor positions at the big guys (Google, Apple, Amazon, etc). What's more is that on paper, these same companies espouse 'work-life' balance, while those who try to leave there laptops at work after hours end up on probation like the individual in this article.

What exactly do they do that requires 60 hours of work and no less?

When you say "check emails", can you describe the typical task that would be assigned to employee?

I ask because it all seems very vague as to what the employees actually do. Are they all software engineers? Customer service? Which ones are overworked?

I specifically kept it vague for reasons of anonymity, as these types of statements have cost people their jobs in the past, and also due to the fact that what I described was work habits of people I talk to across different engineering roles (software, hardware, infrastructure) in the company I work for.

You can work less than 60 hours, but it will show in your output, as deadlines are aggressive and set tops down.

Examples of the kind of thing someone is answering emails in the early morning for is bugs discovered in your code, a regression that's failing, or something found that's blocking another coworkers' progress (since they were working late into the night as well).

I appreciate the clarification, but keep in mind that "keeping it vague" means you're adding nothing to the conversation.

Without specifics it's much harder to get a grasp of the issue and nearly impossible for someone who already isn't a part of that culture/workforce.

> these types of statements have cost people their jobs in the past

I'm able to appreciate that, but this is why we're on the internet, and anonymity should be theirs and your personal responsibility and no one elses.

> What exactly do they do that requires 60 hours of work and no less?

It's not so much the type of work, but other factors like volume, availability and perceived engagement. Even if you were capable of getting done in 20 hours what takes 60 hours for someone else you'd be expected to be available to help the team or respond to issues. Often times, in these types of environments you'll be expected to reply to issues quickly, respond to managers/leads if there's a question and these will arise at any moment within those 60 work hours, because even though you finished "your tasks" the team is still working to finish theirs and you're expected to be around "adding value".

As regards to the "checks emails", the task can literally be anything: a question regarding code, a response to an inquiry, a prompt for a decision on some topic, or a request for information that's needed ASAP. I've seen organizations that track the time taken to get a reply to these emails and they keep track in Excel sheets the average response time from individuals and their number of responses.

For example, I've also seen people get reported to management for taking a nap during their lunch break, even though they had finished their assigned task. The details of the tasks become irrelevant in those types of toxic environments.

Whatever your work conditions may be, it still stinks for him to be given an offer on paper which looks comparable to other companies of Amazon's reach, and yet in the small print wind up being a lot worse.

If you don't like the fine print, don't take the offer?

Why be offended by an offer? It's just an offer. Counter or just say "no".

Being offended is a waste of time.

Well, they didn't post their offer letter, so we have no idea if those details were in "small print" or not.

i think his complaint is in the context of amazon's aggresive and stressful work culture. For all of that, you ought to get some pretty good benefits

Yeah, same here (more or less): I think Amazon doesn't compare favorably to Google or Facebook, but it compares pretty well to almost every other employer out there...