I can only speak for my team, but I think the performance heavy culture is overblown. And the definition of slacking off is relative. Nobody operates at 100% every day, that's unrealistic. The general consensus seems to be "get your work done in a timely manner, and you will be fine". I have worked at several other large organizations where this wasn't the case. People could just coast for years without getting much done. I haven't come across any of those types of folks at Netflix. We do get tons of breathing space. We have an upcoming quiet week where we can choose if we want to use as time off or continue to work with no meetings. I rarely work over 40 hours. Sure, there are some weeks with a big release or project, where you might have an occasional late night, but that's totally up to how well you planned and executed the project. In summary, it feels like any other place I've worked, but with a denser talent base. Work life balance is pretty good. As long as you don't go a year of consistently negative performance reviews, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.