Sorry to hear that, and I realize that what I said is as much of anecdata as what you said, but this sounds more like an exception. Those exceptions do happen.

Sorry to hear that, and I realize that what I said is as much of anecdata as what you said, but this sounds more like an exception. Those exceptions do happen. For example, Amazon is known to be a brutal meatgrinder for engineers, and most of the experiences I've heard of from people I know irl support that assertion. That reputation isn't a secret to absolutely anyone. However, there are definitely those rare few teams at Amazon that are actually quite nice about work-life balance and are extremely functional, without any usual bs you would expect from an average Amazon team. But those teams are absolutely an exception. Is your SO on Xbox by any chance? Not asking it to invalidate what you have said, I am just genuinely curious. Plus, it would be another good datapoint for me to be aware of in the future. I was guessing Xbox because anything gaming-related is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear about insane work hours.