Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#21

Post by programmertote » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 10:16 PM UTC

I left Amazon due to RTO. They hired me as a fully remote employee (I was told that the VP of Prime US was one of those who signed off on my remote arrangement). Anyway, a year later, they asked me to move to Seattle or Virginia (wherever their second office is) or Chicago (there's only like one or two directors from my team located there; most of the team are located in Seattle or Virginia). I started looking for a remote job and in 3 months, I was out.

Things I didn't like about Amazon: - you get paid once a month (basically, you'll letting the company use your money for free) - if I remember correctly, you get your RSUs vested at the end of the year for the second year (I think it's like 20% of your total comp) - your comp is heavily reliant on RSUs for the third and fourth year AND the base salary was below 200K - some of the things they do are cult-y - too much writing instead of building prototypes - some folks there practice resume-driven development regardless of whether it's actually good for the org/group in terms of maintainability, simplicity, etc.

Having said that, I met good coworkers and worked in a good team (luckily) although our on-calls were sometimes brutal (like hundreds of tickets a week during the on-call).

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#22

Post by kevindamm » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 10:16 PM UTC

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #10

randycupertino wrote: post #6

5 days a week RTO is just beyond the pale. 3 days, sure. 4 days, maybe. But 5 days in office is harsh. Top talent sees this as rude, lack of trust, unnecessary babysitting and middle managing. 3-4 days sure, good for networking, collaboration, etc. But give people 1 day a week flex at least to be trusted adults who can responsibly wfh.

[flagged]

It shouldn't be about hours in a seat, it should be about deliverables met and actions & communication around those that couldn't be met. For knowledge work and creative tasks, at least.

I would really be surprised if Amazon didn't allow their top performers a day or two of WFH per week in pre-pandemic days. Other FAANGs basically had that policy before the pandemic. If they're really saying 5-day RTO for everyone, yeah, there are a lot of people who would legitimately decline those terms.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#23

Post by MangoToupe » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 10:17 PM UTC

I truly believe that most mainstream companies don't really want "top talent" so much as they want to control their talent, hence why we don't have any option to work under 40 hours a week.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#24

Post by ardit33 » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 10:20 PM UTC

Amazon culture is only viable because the H1B system. I worked there (yes I was on H1B), and they made sure to delay any green card conversion at every step possible in order to keep you there longer.

If they were unable to abuse it, they'd be more employee friendly.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#25

Post by mikert89 » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 10:25 PM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #24

Amazon culture is only viable because the H1B system. I worked there (yes I was on H1B), and they made sure to delay any green card conversion at every step possible in order to keep you there longer. If they were unable to abuse it, they'd be more employee friendly.

the secret to amazons work culture is near unlimited visa labor, they couldnt get away with the work conditions with an american labor force

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#26

Post by zetazzed » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 10:26 PM UTC

webdevver wrote: post #9

do they even need top talent? arguably they are in a commodity business. doesn't take a genius to build a DC and sell compute slices.

Their revenue is like $670bln. If you come up with an innovation that increases that by 0.01%, say by better optimizing prices or targeting adds, you've added $60m of revenue. If you pay a star engineer $1m per year and they have even a reasonable chance of an improvement on this scale, or a similar reduction in costs, then you have a super profitable deal.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#27

Post by oatmeal_croc » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 10:30 PM UTC

webdevver wrote: post #9

do they even need top talent? arguably they are in a commodity business. doesn't take a genius to build a DC and sell compute slices.

It's a pretty non trivial problem to build and maintain infrastructure and customer relationships at that scale, yes, including the myriad of services they provide other than just "compute slices".

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#28

Post by ascendantlogic » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 10:30 PM UTC

randycupertino wrote: post #6

5 days a week RTO is just beyond the pale. 3 days, sure. 4 days, maybe. But 5 days in office is harsh. Top talent sees this as rude, lack of trust, unnecessary babysitting and middle managing. 3-4 days sure, good for networking, collaboration, etc. But give people 1 day a week flex at least to be trusted adults who can responsibly wfh.

Any days in office just to spend most of it on zoom calls is too many.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#29

Post by christhecaribou » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 10:31 PM UTC

mikert89 wrote: post #16

ajkjk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is this, like, true? or gut feeling? or made up?

I worked there for a long time. It’s 100% true. They mostly need low level workers to keep the systems going.

I’ve only been at AWS for seven years, but it’s a completely different company than it was in 2018.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#30

Post by oatmeal_croc » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 10:31 PM UTC

5 days a work is diabolical. I was laid off earlier this year, received an Amazon offer and turned them down when I got another offer that was 3 days a week in the Bay. Now I wouldn't mind if I lived next to the office, but I don't. Commuting 5 days a week would ruin my life.

Now I'm definitely not "top talent", I'm as middle of the barrel as they come, but if I feel this way, I'm sure folks much smarter than me would just block Amazon recruiters on LinkedIn.