It's not news that the big-A wants its software engineers working 60 hours per week. I interviewed for a principle engineer role and everything seemed to be going well. But when the offer came it said "Software Engineer II." I asked about that and they said... "Oh, don't worry. We have to hire you in at a lower grade 'cause we can only hire so many principal engineers per quarter. you'll get automatically promoted at the end of the next quarter." The money was still pretty good so I didn't think anything about it.
Eventually I figured out that they had stiffed me on typical stock options. The whole bait-and-switch thing was their way to try and hire Sr. people for Jr. engineer's option grants.
Of course I wasn't automatically promoted and my boss mentioned, "oh yeah, you have to do a Dev III project to get promoted to Software Developer III first." And they expected me to do that project on my own time. sigh
Then in the middle of doing a software project for Amazon on my own fucking time I get moved under a different manager. The first thing he does is say I've been underperforming and he was going to put me on a PIP (I had perfect reviews the year before.) How the hell can you review my work two weeks after I start working for you?
About this time I bumped into a former-coworker who mentioned how happy he was after leaving Amazon. So I say to myself "f** this sh*" and quit in a couple weeks after getting a decent offer from another company to do consulting.
About two months later our HR rep returns from vacation and calls me up asking why I quit and I tell her it was clear I wasn't Amazon material, having had perfect reviews for a year and then being put on a PIP. She then asks "you were on a PIP? that's news to me," and another friend I knew in HR tells me managers will do this slimy thing to get more performance out of people during the holidays where they tell them they're on a PIP, but they really aren't. If you're on a PIP, HR will be involved.
Amateur ass-clowns. Everyone talks about how much dosh you'll bank at AMZN. Not really. I now make about the same amount in salary, but have a significantly higher equity stake in a smaller company.
It might be okay for your first or second job (it's not all negative, there's plenty of opportunity to learn about computing at scale.) But you're going to be working 55-60 hours per week to be promoted and told you're on a PIP just before Thanksgiving.