Re: Missing information
From very personal former experience, they do pay very good salaries, at least coming within shouting distance of contract rates.
Add to that, stock options (though if I'd stayed I'd be pretty miffed with the performance if I hadn't been able to cash out during the peak). In addition, at least during the peak of the pandemic, a very generous personal purchase policy for home office. That may now be gone, though.
For that... well, the cited ElReg article is very much spot on, it just isn't complete. It's, well, it's a cult. You drink the kool-aid and yes, you are lost to the rest of the world. Everything you say, no matter how trivial, that relates in any way to the company must be filtered. To ridiculous extent.
However, what isn't mentioned at all is that the company (at least AWS) is already fractured into fiefdoms led by empire-builders. How you do, whether you become a celeb who holds forth at events or whether you're PIPed, all comes down to what kingdom you end up in.
I went from 10 months of some of the most amazing work I ever got to do in my career - and a prized Accolade - to absolute hell on Earth in a matter of weeks, doomed by a re-org (former manager left, his manager lost in inner-AWS warfare and up the chain). You can't even simply change to a better or more interesting team because your manager essentially can poison the chalice. Even the people you used to successfully work with and who know better, can no longer touch you with a 10-foot pole.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
