Just to provide my data point. I am an okay SDE, average for this site. I enjoy working at AWS. My team is particularly good to belong to, but I know at least 5 teams I would enjoy working at, and just 1 I would avoid. I work normal hours, have phenomenal pay and benefits, and the scale is very satisfying.

The only thing I dislike is the yearly performance review (I really really hate boasting about my achievements), but I heard all the large tech companies are like this, so I probably will have to deal with them for the rest of my career.

I've concluded amazon is a dice roll. I know people who work there and it's a chill deal, and I've heard plenty of stories who bounce out before they get their initial vest. You just have to be ready to put in solid effort and know that you might end up with a bad situation.

Why not? I've heard about Amazon's horrible conditions for drivers, but haven't heard too much about how it is in their developer department.

Same. I value my work/life balance too much these days.