It's not that we didn't think it wouldn't affect us, it's that Amazon pays unfathomable, life changing amounts of money to their engineers. Don't get me wrong there are absolutely insufferable people there, but I'd wager most people are there for the money alone.

I was an intern at AWS, and my return offer for full time was $220k per year fresh out of college to do 40 hours work weeks with a 24/7 one-week on call once every two months. My sign on bonus (lump sum on first paycheck) was $60k, or almost the average yearly pay of a US citizen. Unless you came from money, you'd take that offer in a heartbeat. I grew up middle class so money like that was impossible to say no to. I knew what I was getting into, and I tried to get a comparable offer right up until my start date, but few companies will dump over $200k per year on a new grad software engineer.

I got out a few months ago, and it has been the best thing for my mental health. My anxiety is much more manageable, I don't have week long 24/7 on call shifts, I'm full remote, and my pay is only 10% less. With that said, I wouldn't change a thing if I went back in time. I have financial stability I didn't even know was possible, and it gave me a massive headstart in life.