For what it's worth, as someone who did two internships there, the whole "Amazonians hate their job" thing is way overrated. With the exception of pager duty, most of the legitimate complaints employees used to make have long been addressed. I've interned at other big tech companies too, and Amazon stands out in my mind as having some of the highest morale.
Here's another interesting data point: both of my teams at Amazon are still pretty much 100% intact after 3-4 years – whereas my team at Google, to take one example, have almost all left the company since 2011.
Ex-amazonian here, It really depends on the team. There's 2 types of crappy places to be at Amazon: the really important legacy system, or the we need to catch up with the competition product.
In the first case, there's no opportunity for really improving things, it's usually a small team which can really hamper your advancement, and it breaks constantly. You'll work a 40 hour week, but will get paged all the time and have lots of little emergencies.
The second is sexier, and a good opportunity to move up the ladder, but you'll be working 60-80 hour weeks, loads of crunch time, and suffer due to constantly shifting management as the team explodes in growth.
All that being said, there are a lot of good opportunities, especially for younger engineers. Provided you have a decent performance review, mobility is pretty easy, so if you're stuck on a shitty team, that can change after a year+. You'll want to find a team with a manager who's been around amazon for a little while. You're supposed to tell your current manager first that you're looking around at other opportunities, but in practice this is rarely done before all but securing a new position. I recommend the Rowhouse coffee shop for talking with potential future managers. It's usually pretty clear after 2 and has lots of little rooms and well shaded windows.
If you end up stuck on a shit team, without being able to move around, start looking around Seattle. Twitter, Google, Hulu and Facebook are all hiring here, and they all usually pay better, in addition to having better perks. It's quite something to interview at Google's offices and see the difference in culture. If you've just gotten a promotion, or shipped a major product, that's an ideal time to start talking with other potential employers.
I also did two internship at Amazon and had a different experience.
There's probably a ton of people who love their job and a ton who "hate" their job -- it's a huge company and you're gonna find everyone. However, I do think that the culture has it's flaws, namely that the core values include frugality.
Working at other startups and large companies I've seen a new way, a much better one. Amazon cuts on the expenses to save their bottom line. Other companies do as much as possible for their employees. It leads to a much happier person (IMO). Free food, nice perks, etc. I'm more productive and work much longer (at my last internship I spend 12 consecutive nights at work). I distinctly remember everyone on my team being jealous of other companies and their free food/drinks/perks and always talking about how nice it must be there.
It might have been a truely great experience, but just by the sound of it it's hard to endorse as a 'nice to be there' style of work. Did you have to convince your manager to let you do it, or was it just part of the ambient mood to stay so much?
It was more of me wanting to hangout and chill after work, followed by me wanting to work and get stuff done before a launch. I was told many many times to go home and take days off. Just my personality to work a lot.
Here's another interesting data point: both of my teams at Amazon are still pretty much 100% intact after 3-4 years – whereas my team at Google, to take one example, have almost all left the company since 2011.