More like, sounds like the parent comment you replied to has no idea what they are talking about.

I worked across a couple big tech companies mentioned in the thread, and I've met maybe a couple coworkers at most who "devoted their life to the company". And that's across almost a 3-digit number of people i worked with in some capacity over the years. People take vacations often, they work 40 hours a week or less on average (over the year).

One big thing about most teams at big tech companies (probably sans Amazon, from what i hear, haven't worked there myself) is the work/life balance being an important priority. We had a manager giving stern talks to the few teammates who would reply to work emails on their days off ("you left for a week of vacation in Hawaii, why are you replying to work emails or even brought your work laptop with you? Please stop doing that and enjoy your vacation, everything will be totally fine when you come back.").

I don't even care to defend any company, that's their problem. But seeing the whole "cultism" and "expected to dedicate your life to the employer" accusations just make me feel like I am reading some alternate timeline fiction story.

They are exaggerating but not all wrong. As hiring manager my job is not to train you for your next job. I'm hiring for productivity and that takes time. If you are going to jump ship before you "pay" back the company then I'd rather skip on you. There is no test but I want 2-3 years if you take 9 months or more to get going and I'd be foolish if I didn't want more.

Lots of programmers think they are 10x but few are. Even my best senior engineers took 2-3 months to settle in and contribute more than they take and juniors are bigger gamble.

The best proxy now is will you spend 1 hour on a simple set of tests, if not you are not serious or are shopping for counteroffers.