I am also at Amazon currently. You are right, its not as frugal as in the past but it is still significantly more frugal than an environment like Google or simi

I am also at Amazon currently. You are right, its not as frugal as in the past but it is still significantly more frugal than an environment like Google or similar startups/unicorns that go for that. I have interviewed people who are horrified to see soda machines with prices. Requesting a nicer desk (which requires some ergo hoops), no daily soda/food, and decent but not fully maxed out hardware is still pretty frugal comparatively for engineers, even if they have loosened things up in the last 3-4 years from before. While Amazon now provides you hardware that is actual functional for the job, places like Google are giving you free yoga and dry cleaning.