Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by outside1234 » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:05 AM UTC

bencpeters wrote: post #46

discodave wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can’t wait to shoot them down!

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

#352

Post by zxcvbn4038 » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:05 AM UTC

andirk wrote: post #321

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would think so but too many people get really comfortable and never expand their skills beyond the minimum required to do their current job. Last year I had an SRE position open I had to interview over three dozen people before I found one guy who could explain anything he had done in any detail. Everybody else was probably in the room when someone else did something, but could not give details of what was done,…

I always wonder how people who are only in the room when things happen have any pride in their work and aren't embarrassed at their lack of production. A couple jobs ago was people who put most of their effort in to making sure their group of shitty engineers wasn't found out. It was a lot of work! Since they were all about quantity of people over any quality, they had to keep hiring more people, so there was a lot o…

I’ve never understood the people who make no effort to better themselves - they work in technology, everything has a 3-5 year engineering life, they should always be preparing for the next thing.

People often can’t control what technologies their employer uses, but if they have solid fundamentals and I can tell they have tried to learn things on their own, more often then not I’ll give them a chance, and it usually works out because they are doing what they really want to do, and they are always looking for ways to build upon and improve what they’ve worked on.

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

#353

Post by skybrian » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:09 AM UTC

wdr1 wrote: post #347

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…

> We are seeing a bit of a market downturn - but it hasn’t hit Amazon pocketbook now, has it? Um, yes? Honestly, I'm not sure how one could sincerely make this statement. Amazon's net income for Q3 '22 is roughly a third of its net income Q4 '21. If losing 2/3rds of your revenue isn't considered hitting the pocketbook, I don't want is. Now you could yada yada yada they're still profitable, but that's a different argu…

Net income is not revenue, so you got your signals crossed somewhere.

From: https://www.statista.com/statistics/273963/quarterly-revenue...

   Revenue Q3 2022: $127 billion
   Revenue Q4 2021: $137 billion

Note the stair-step graph. Q4 is Christmas so it's a lot higher. That's why we normally compare numbers with a year earlier.

   Revenue Q3 2021: $111 billion

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

#354

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:10 AM UTC

wdr1 wrote: post #347

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…

> We are seeing a bit of a market downturn - but it hasn’t hit Amazon pocketbook now, has it? Um, yes? Honestly, I'm not sure how one could sincerely make this statement. Amazon's net income for Q3 '22 is roughly a third of its net income Q4 '21. If losing 2/3rds of your revenue isn't considered hitting the pocketbook, I don't want is. Now you could yada yada yada they're still profitable, but that's a different argu…

[deleted]

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

#355

Post by bencpeters » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:14 AM UTC

carabiner wrote: post #189

bencpeters wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have a feel for if they might start hiring SDE's again before the end of the month? I was looking into them because it's right up my alley: I'm an aerospace engineer (aeronautics, flight test) turned software engineer who's worked a lot in rotorcraft.

I don't, unfortunately, that's above my paygrade ;-). It's likely going to be a function of the larger hiring situation at Amazon (we're currently in a corporate hiring freeze), rather than something Prime Air specific.

Sounds like you've got a perfect background for Prime Air though! Hopefully we'll be hiring again sometime this year - feel free to reach out (email in profile) if you want to chat more about it.

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

#356

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:24 AM UTC

andirk wrote: post #321

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would think so but too many people get really comfortable and never expand their skills beyond the minimum required to do their current job. Last year I had an SRE position open I had to interview over three dozen people before I found one guy who could explain anything he had done in any detail. Everybody else was probably in the room when someone else did something, but could not give details of what was done,…

I always wonder how people who are only in the room when things happen have any pride in their work and aren't embarrassed at their lack of production. A couple jobs ago was people who put most of their effort in to making sure their group of shitty engineers wasn't found out. It was a lot of work! Since they were all about quantity of people over any quality, they had to keep hiring more people, so there was a lot o…

[deleted]

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

#357

Post by agentultra » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:28 AM UTC

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #352

andirk wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder how people who are only in the room when things happen have any pride in their work and aren't embarrassed at their lack of production. A couple jobs ago was people who put most of their effort in to making sure their group of shitty engineers wasn't found out. It was a lot of work! Since they were all about quantity of people over any quality, they had to keep hiring more people, so there was a lot o…

I’ve never understood the people who make no effort to better themselves - they work in technology, everything has a 3-5 year engineering life, they should always be preparing for the next thing. People often can’t control what technologies their employer uses, but if they have solid fundamentals and I can tell they have tried to learn things on their own, more often then not I’ll give them a chance, and it usually w…

How excellent do you want to be at generic enterprise CRUD apps?

Somebody has to build and maintain them.

Have you considered that maybe they’re fine with their level of responsibility and can leave work at the office?

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

#358

Post by redtriumph » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:30 AM UTC

dkrich wrote: post #208

WillPostForFood wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the fed commits to hiking rates to slow the economy, it almost always leads to recession. You'd have to be a hyper optimist to not plan for a recession, as an individual, or a business. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/29/federal-reserve-rec...

They have very little credibility currently because of past miscues beginning in 2018. The fed has to talk tough because if they were to say “we probably aren’t going to hike much more” markets would likely rebound, easing liquidity and making their job of reducing inflation harder if not impossible. The problem is that it seems the bond market sees through this and isn’t buying the tough talk. I think most people be…

> They have very little credibility currently because of past miscues beginning in 2018.

Citation for above: https://twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/161072868776647475...

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

#359

Post by bobthepanda » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:31 AM UTC

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #289

quasarj wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First experience with the US immigration process, eh?

FWIW, it does not seem like an uncommon reaction. My wife had a similar questions bordering on disbelief, when I was giving her a glimpse of current US immigration system based on my experience alone.

The way the current immigration system works is not taught at all in schools. Maybe if you’re lucky you get taught about the Ellis Island days where all you had to do was prove you had enough money not to starve and not have any signs of infectious disease like tuberculosis.

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

#360

Post by throwawayatr » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:33 AM UTC

johnohara wrote: post #341

hgsgm wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of this story? That your government is failing at social welfare so people are relying on PepsiCo for charity?

No. That real decisions affect real lives and have real effects. I do not subscribe to the idea that employees are an accounting problem either.

You should start a business and grant permanent jobs.

Low interest rates created a lot of bullshit jobs in the first place. You have a problem with those jobs taken away but not people loosing savings bcz of interest rates lower than inflation.