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Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

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Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#471

Post by whiddershins »

FFRefresh wrote: post #280
youessayyyaway wrote: post #81

I think this article might bury the lede a bit: >Walmart is offering some workers with past warehouse experience as much as $25 an hour. An Amazon executive told Reuters in late 2021 that the company was bumping the average starting wage for new hires in the US to more than $18 an hour, attributing the decision to intense competition among employers. People used to work for Amazon warehouses in the 2010s because $15/…

>Walmart is offering some workers with past warehouse experience as much as $25 an hour. An Amazon executive told Reuters in late 2021 that the company was bumping the average starting wage for new hires in the US to more than $18 an hour, attributing the decision to intense competition among employers. This is a common type of formulation in journalism that often reveals the bias of the journalist. 1. Walmart pays S…

I don't think that formulation is misleading, it is GP who put an interpretation on it that was critical of Amazon.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#472

Post by nomel »

jeromegv wrote: post #442
99_00 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>pretty strong evidence that the jobs look a lot worse once you're in one of them Pretty strong evidence that the job is worse than people would expect would be an anonymous survey of workers by a third party. Churn can result from any number of factors. It simply isn't enough to support your conclusion, and a lack of imagination in seeing alternative explanations isn't proof. Warehouse jobs have high churn. Yes, Ama…

The fact that people are leaving with their foot is a strong evidence in itself that the job is not good. Does Ford lose all their workers right now? No. But they are unionized and make more money. Of course different industry but since Amazon chose to be in the industry of razor-thin margin, they have to find a solution to their own problem. If their business model relies on super cheap labor, then they must adapt.

> The fact that people are leaving with their foot is a strong evidence in itself that the job is not good.

Do we know which positions are leaving? Is it the back breaking jobs, or the higher level stuff? I don't imagine any the back breaking portion would ever be "good". It's seems like fast food, something that should be transitory, where you move on to better things (even if that's fast food management). Physical labor is a young persons job, because bodies break. It's not something you could stay with if you wanted to.

If it's the skilled positions, like mechanics, engineers, forklift operators, operations, etc, that are leaving, then I think that would be better evidence. If it's the guys moving boxes, maybe not.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#473

Post by lbrito »

vishnugupta wrote: post #469
madrox wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a secret. Engineers are treated this way as well. At my time at Amazon, it was explained to me that this is why their comp structure is so wrapped up in stock and salaries are so low. Unless you keep getting promoted and get more stock, employees will naturally want to leave within four years.

> stock You left out a big part here; RSU vesting schedule is back loaded. It's something like 5-20-25-50

It's 5-15-40-40

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#474

Post by peanuty1 »

vishnugupta wrote: post #469
madrox wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a secret. Engineers are treated this way as well. At my time at Amazon, it was explained to me that this is why their comp structure is so wrapped up in stock and salaries are so low. Unless you keep getting promoted and get more stock, employees will naturally want to leave within four years.

> stock You left out a big part here; RSU vesting schedule is back loaded. It's something like 5-20-25-50

It's 5-15-40-40

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#475

Post by peanuty1 »

ActorNightly wrote: post #450
madrox wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a secret. Engineers are treated this way as well. At my time at Amazon, it was explained to me that this is why their comp structure is so wrapped up in stock and salaries are so low. Unless you keep getting promoted and get more stock, employees will naturally want to leave within four years.

In what world is a $150k out of college starting salary low?

I think their new grad salary is around 120k in HCOL areas like SF.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#476

Post by vishnugupta »

hintymad wrote: post #412
madrox wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a secret. Engineers are treated this way as well. At my time at Amazon, it was explained to me that this is why their comp structure is so wrapped up in stock and salaries are so low. Unless you keep getting promoted and get more stock, employees will naturally want to leave within four years.

As a result, AWS engineers are very much promotion oriented. This leads to two results: title inflation and disgruntled employees. L6 used to be a big deal but not any more. L7 is now the new L6. The challenge with this arrangement is that whoever got promoted early on but stayed in the same level get less in return. And apparently it's human's nature to compare. When engineers see that their peers get promoted to L7…

> L7 (a role used to be considered almost impossible to reach)

I can attest to this; worked there from mid 2000s to early 2010s. Principle Engineers, L7 ICs, were looked up as Gods back then. To an extent that a couple of projects by an L5 where it went through principal-review process was almost guaranteed to get them a promotion to L6. Back when I was there I thought pulling off L5-L6 required crazy work schedule (I couldn't so didn't) and L7 was well and truly beyond mortals.

But now I hear they are doling out L7s like candy as they are getting increasingly desperate to fill their open head counts. How times change!

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#477

Post by charles_f »

lisper wrote: post #269

> Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos saw his warehouse workforce as necessary but replaceable, and feared that workers who remained at the company too long would turn complacent or, worse, disgruntled, according to reporting by the New York Times. Wow. Think about what this is really saying: Amazon adopts the explicit policy of not wanting their workers to stay on long enough to figure out that they are getting…

Beyond the "up or out" mentality, the disgust you got from considering people as replaceable cogs in a machine and how it's done overall, and maybe not applicable to warehouse forces ; I think having some turnover in your organization is a good thing. You don't get the same diversity of idea and experience when people around you have all been there for 15 years than you get when they're coming and going. In my experience people who have been around for a long time tend to drink the coolade much more, and are more complacent with stuff that shouldn't be.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#478

Post by amzn-throw »

lisper wrote: post #461
amzn-throw wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record, being on the other side, and working hard to CREATE these experiences that customers love is absolutely addictive and intoxicating. You have to actually give a shit about it though. Which most of us do. It requires effort and grit to have this level of "customer obsession", and to be fair, I would say we are mostly well compensated for it. But it's not for everyone. Plenty of SDEs, including in this m…

Kudos to you. If you think it's a fair deal, more power to you. I'll sleep better at night knowing that you feel like you're not being exploited, and that you're being fairly compensated for the work you do. But I've heard too many horror stories to ever take that risk myself.

This comment isn't directed to you specifically, but the many many others who feel the same.

"What have you got to lose?"

By that I mean, we're in a hot tech market. If it doesn't work out, you can likely find a job elsewhere with ease.

OK, but we're about to hit a recession. I'd venture Amazon is a lot safer than many other tech companies to ride out a recession in - the core business (cloud and retail) is fundamentally sound. The company is only ever not profitable when it chooses not to be because it invests all gains into new R&D and lines of business. When things tighten in the market, Amazon refocuses on core optimizations, and realizes massive profits again. Certainly I can't predict layoffs or no layoffs, but noone can, at any company.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#480

Post by peanuty1 »

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #396

“Running out of people to hire” is a strange way of saying “Not offering employees enough to want to work there”. To be catty, there are plenty of people to hire, but maybe they’re running out of people to exploit.

It's not sustainable for them to offer, say, $30 an hour starting salary for fulfillment centre employees. As it is, they have to subsidize retail with other revenue lines like AWS and advertising.
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