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Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

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Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#11

Post by andsoitis »

erehweb wrote: post #5

I found this comment from an anonymous tech industry insider interesting: "Amazon is very, very bloated. So there's lots of people there but they're not providing a lot of value so they're first on the chopping block." This is counter to what I have heard about Amazon, which is that it is a ruthless environment where low performers are stack ranked out of the company. Does anyone have any insight?

> This is counter to what I have heard about Amazon, which is that it is a ruthless environment where low performers are stack ranked out of the company. Does anyone have any insight?

If you have to fire the bottom x% of your team every year due to low performance, doesn't it mean that you have a constant low performing cadre? Otherwise, why would you get rid of them?

So I don't think it being "cut throat" and there are "many low performers/bloat" are at odds.

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#12

Post by andsoitis »

malfist wrote: post #8

The "worlds best employer" is horribly mismanaging this layoff. It's all hush hush, and nobody is admitting anything until suddenly you have a meeting at the end of the day with a bigwig and HR. The severance is a pittance. 60 days garden leave like twitter where if you find employment external you give up remaining severance. If you're unable to find another job, you get a week of severance per 6 months of employmen…

> World's best employer

This is the first ever that I hear this label attached to Amazon. Do they claim it? I've never seen them in the #1 spot on any top employer / best place to work ranking. I just googled again just to make sure, but perhaps I missed something.

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#13

Post by celestialcheese »

malfist wrote: post #8

The "worlds best employer" is horribly mismanaging this layoff. It's all hush hush, and nobody is admitting anything until suddenly you have a meeting at the end of the day with a bigwig and HR. The severance is a pittance. 60 days garden leave like twitter where if you find employment external you give up remaining severance. If you're unable to find another job, you get a week of severance per 6 months of employmen…

So if you don't find other work, max severance is like 28.5 weeks? Or is 20 the cap? If it's the former, almost 7 months of runway to find a new job is pretty great.

The pulling of severance on job acceptance is a cheap move by Amazon, but not unexpected given their "frugality" in all aspects of their comp and perks.

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#14

Post by malfist »

andsoitis wrote: post #12
malfist wrote: post #8

The "worlds best employer" is horribly mismanaging this layoff. It's all hush hush, and nobody is admitting anything until suddenly you have a meeting at the end of the day with a bigwig and HR. The severance is a pittance. 60 days garden leave like twitter where if you find employment external you give up remaining severance. If you're unable to find another job, you get a week of severance per 6 months of employmen…

> World's best employer This is the first ever that I hear this label attached to Amazon. Do they claim it? I've never seen them in the #1 spot on any top employer / best place to work ranking. I just googled again just to make sure, but perhaps I missed something.

"World's best employer" was added to our leadership principles April 2021.

It's 100% bullshit.

So far the actions they've taken to be the worlds best employer has been....changing the password reset cycle to be one year instead of 90 days.

You can't be world's best employer while frugality reigns supreme.

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#15

Post by smithrj »

andsoitis wrote: post #12
malfist wrote: post #8

The "worlds best employer" is horribly mismanaging this layoff. It's all hush hush, and nobody is admitting anything until suddenly you have a meeting at the end of the day with a bigwig and HR. The severance is a pittance. 60 days garden leave like twitter where if you find employment external you give up remaining severance. If you're unable to find another job, you get a week of severance per 6 months of employmen…

> World's best employer This is the first ever that I hear this label attached to Amazon. Do they claim it? I've never seen them in the #1 spot on any top employer / best place to work ranking. I just googled again just to make sure, but perhaps I missed something.

They added it as one of the two new leadership principles last year I believe.

https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#16

Post by malfist »

celestialcheese wrote: post #13
malfist wrote: post #8

The "worlds best employer" is horribly mismanaging this layoff. It's all hush hush, and nobody is admitting anything until suddenly you have a meeting at the end of the day with a bigwig and HR. The severance is a pittance. 60 days garden leave like twitter where if you find employment external you give up remaining severance. If you're unable to find another job, you get a week of severance per 6 months of employmen…

So if you don't find other work, max severance is like 28.5 weeks? Or is 20 the cap? If it's the former, almost 7 months of runway to find a new job is pretty great. The pulling of severance on job acceptance is a cheap move by Amazon, but not unexpected given their "frugality" in all aspects of their comp and perks.

If at the end of the 60 days, you get a lump sump payment of 4-20 weeks of base pay, no sign on bonus or RSUs included.

Amazon famously caps base pay, so most people, even super senior people will not be making more than 160k/yr unless they were hired in the last year.

If you find employment externally during those 60 days, all payments stop and you get nothing more from amazon.

To get the 7 months of pay you'll have had to be at amazon 10+ years. That's like 3 people. Turnover for all roles is >100%, tech is something like 50+%

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#17

Post by andsoitis »

malfist wrote: post #14
andsoitis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> World's best employer This is the first ever that I hear this label attached to Amazon. Do they claim it? I've never seen them in the #1 spot on any top employer / best place to work ranking. I just googled again just to make sure, but perhaps I missed something.

"World's best employer" was added to our leadership principles April 2021. It's 100% bullshit. So far the actions they've taken to be the worlds best employer has been....changing the password reset cycle to be one year instead of 90 days. You can't be world's best employer while frugality reigns supreme.

I see. Looked it up (https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles), says "Strive to be Earth's Best Employer".

Did Amazon perhaps add it to the list because of lackluster workplace quality, and so this is still early in the journey?

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#18

Post by discopicante »

andsoitis wrote: post #11
erehweb wrote: post #5

I found this comment from an anonymous tech industry insider interesting: "Amazon is very, very bloated. So there's lots of people there but they're not providing a lot of value so they're first on the chopping block." This is counter to what I have heard about Amazon, which is that it is a ruthless environment where low performers are stack ranked out of the company. Does anyone have any insight?

> This is counter to what I have heard about Amazon, which is that it is a ruthless environment where low performers are stack ranked out of the company. Does anyone have any insight? If you have to fire the bottom x% of your team every year due to low performance, doesn't it mean that you have a constant low performing cadre? Otherwise, why would you get rid of them? So I don't think it being "cut throat" and there…

Amazon is notorious for practicing _forced_ attrition e.g. forcing the relative low performers out of the org (who still might be performing at expectations, onboarding, etc.).

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#19

Post by socialismisok »

andsoitis wrote: post #11
erehweb wrote: post #5

I found this comment from an anonymous tech industry insider interesting: "Amazon is very, very bloated. So there's lots of people there but they're not providing a lot of value so they're first on the chopping block." This is counter to what I have heard about Amazon, which is that it is a ruthless environment where low performers are stack ranked out of the company. Does anyone have any insight?

> This is counter to what I have heard about Amazon, which is that it is a ruthless environment where low performers are stack ranked out of the company. Does anyone have any insight? If you have to fire the bottom x% of your team every year due to low performance, doesn't it mean that you have a constant low performing cadre? Otherwise, why would you get rid of them? So I don't think it being "cut throat" and there…

Managers at Amazon are expected to put 5 to 10% on a PIP or manage them out every review cycle.

No matter if your team is amazing or not, 5% getting cut.

Re: Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees

#20

Post by blue039 »

erehweb wrote: post #5

I found this comment from an anonymous tech industry insider interesting: "Amazon is very, very bloated. So there's lots of people there but they're not providing a lot of value so they're first on the chopping block." This is counter to what I have heard about Amazon, which is that it is a ruthless environment where low performers are stack ranked out of the company. Does anyone have any insight?

It takes a while to stack rank people out of the company. It's not an efficient pipeline. Moreover, smart engineers know how to game the system.

So Amazon, like every other FAANG, is very bloated. I've yet to experience any sort of major layoff in the industry at large. They seem mostly isolated to these mega-corps that got PPP money, hired way too much, and are now trimming back the fat. It is sort of icing the fungibility of jobs for now but not in a way that I am at all worried about.

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