It sounds like you're missing an opportunity to handle the SQS visibility yourself instead of leaning on the default handling. If you interact with the SQS API

It sounds like you're missing an opportunity to handle the SQS visibility yourself instead of leaning on the default handling. If you interact with the SQS API from within your code (whether that's in your Lambda function or some other orchestration like a Step Function), the default handling ceases and you're in full control. Do this and you can now decide exactly and programmatically when a message is made visible again. While it's not the focus of his talk, there's a good example of SQS message visibility done properly here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I85MPC_5yXE&t=2614s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I85MPC_5yXE&t=2614s