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Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

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Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#41

Post by eqmvii »

VincentEvans wrote: post #36

Here’s a thought that has been percolating in my mind for a bit since these “market adjustments” began a month or two back. Somehow at some point, in what perhaps could be blamed on the ever-hated mass produced MBAs - companies got really comfortable with the “it’s not personal, it’s just good business” of letting go of their employees for a slightest reason, or sometimes for no reason at all - just to make it look t…

Companies are in the business of predicting the market in a quarter, a year, 5 years, etc.

They got it wrong and overhired. There's ample evidence of that, and of cooling demand - now and in the future.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#42

Post by greatpostman »

bdcravens wrote: post #34
greatpostman wrote: post #23

The funny thing is like 8 months ago amazon was hiring engineers with 4 years of experience for 350-400k. These people aren’t even good programmers. And now they need to cut.

Since you are saying the programmers they hired aren't good, it sounds like you have personal knowledge of the situation (or a bone to pick)

I have personal knowledge

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#43

Post by mjr00 »

discodave wrote: post #16
jvanderbot wrote: post #6

I just wanted to point out that probably 2000 of us (in robotics/AI) were "laid off" in Q4, but were paid through the end of the calendar year "To find an internal position". Almost none did, and I don't think that was really the intent, but what do I know. They're in this batch. I expect a Q2 announcement of all those people who in Q1 were "transitioning to new positions" that were eliminated before they could move.

Sounds like Amazon. Back in the day they managed to avoid 'layoffs' by transferring thousands of people from Fire Phone -> Alexa. They somehow avoided layoffs from shutting down Prime Air (drones, not 767s), even though that had a lot of employees. They're pretty good at getting people to leave without doing 'layoffs'. Heck, if you believe that they've always had 5-10% 'unregretted attrition' targets, which I do, and…

> Heck, if you believe that they've always had 5-10% 'unregretted attrition' targets, which I do, and apply it to the whole company, that's 50-100k employees per year!

This came up last time the Amazon layoffs were on HN, but: the URA target (which was 2-6% when I was there) is for people, not positions. That is, the intent is that departments are continually removing their worst performers, but replacing those people as soon as possible. This is an elimination of 17,000 positions who will not be backfilled.

Whether you agree with the URA target approach or not (I suspect most do not), 6% URA is fundamentally different from 6% layoffs.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#44

Post by greatpostman »

omega3 wrote: post #28
greatpostman wrote: post #23

The funny thing is like 8 months ago amazon was hiring engineers with 4 years of experience for 350-400k. These people aren’t even good programmers. And now they need to cut.

What do you mean that they aren’t even good programmers?

They just solve a few leetcode problems. The company is constantly failing to launch good tech due to technical debt and lack of ability of the engineers

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#45

Post by AviationAtom »

wdb wrote: post #5

Are there enough companies that can afford all the tens of thousands of fired workers SV salaries if all these big companies are firing them?

You didn't see this coming?

The contraction in unavoidable. Mania is never good. At some point heads have to come back down to Earth. The further we go into space the harder they crash back to Earth.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#46

Post by bencpeters »

discodave wrote: post #16
jvanderbot wrote: post #6

I just wanted to point out that probably 2000 of us (in robotics/AI) were "laid off" in Q4, but were paid through the end of the calendar year "To find an internal position". Almost none did, and I don't think that was really the intent, but what do I know. They're in this batch. I expect a Q2 announcement of all those people who in Q1 were "transitioning to new positions" that were eliminated before they could move.

Sounds like Amazon. Back in the day they managed to avoid 'layoffs' by transferring thousands of people from Fire Phone -> Alexa. They somehow avoided layoffs from shutting down Prime Air (drones, not 767s), even though that had a lot of employees. They're pretty good at getting people to leave without doing 'layoffs'. Heck, if you believe that they've always had 5-10% 'unregretted attrition' targets, which I do, and…

Prime Air is not shut down, we're working on it and expanding.

Can't post too many details, but we are actively delivering to customers in test markets today. A publically released video from a few months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bDyeUiWL3M&ab_channel=amazo...

Source: I'm an SDE at Prime Air.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#48

Post by laidoffamazon »

m00x wrote: post #35
nfRfqX5n wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they can make L5/6 to get that salary then they're probably pretty good actually

You can make it to L5/6 without being a good engineer. I interviewed several Uber/Amazon engineers and they couldn't solve a simple problem (very easy problem that most bootcamp grads could do). A lot of them get there by being interviewed by other bad engineers, and just float when the market is strong, or use politics to get in a good position. A guy at my company just merges library upgrade PRs blindly. That's all…

Which companies do have good mid level engineers then, if you believe L5's at Amazon are stupid?

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#49

Post by partiallypro »

VincentEvans wrote: post #36

Here’s a thought that has been percolating in my mind for a bit since these “market adjustments” began a month or two back. Somehow at some point, in what perhaps could be blamed on the ever-hated mass produced MBAs - companies got really comfortable with the “it’s not personal, it’s just good business” of letting go of their employees for a slightest reason, or sometimes for no reason at all - just to make it look t…

Amazon and all of these companies are laying people off based on future forecasts, not based on the current economy. Regardless of if people are first, no company wants teams sitting around not doing anything. I've been laid off, it sucks, but just because Amazon is making money today doesn't mean it will be tomorrow.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#50

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

VincentEvans wrote: post #36

Here’s a thought that has been percolating in my mind for a bit since these “market adjustments” began a month or two back. Somehow at some point, in what perhaps could be blamed on the ever-hated mass produced MBAs - companies got really comfortable with the “it’s not personal, it’s just good business” of letting go of their employees for a slightest reason, or sometimes for no reason at all - just to make it look t…

From yesterday, "Amazon secures $8 billion term loan": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34240271. So Amazon does seem to want to have extra cash on hand for some reason.
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