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Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

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Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#251

Post by consteval »

cscheid wrote: post #41
bb88 wrote: post #24

I'm going to make the observation that politics in a company is caused by management. The more "politics" you have at a company, the more you pay in a "political tax". Effort which should benefit the company is delayed or made harder as employees have to bob and weave to get through the politics. I do believe if you want real culture change in a company, the best way to do it is to show managers the door, because tha…

(Context: I’m an IC and told my Manager multiple times that I’d quit if they ever make me a manager) If you truly believe that, please do yourself a favor and read “The tyranny of structurelessness” to understand what a managerless place becomes. everyone and no one becomes a manager, and there’s no explicit avenue of recourse. There’s a good reason management arises. We can discuss good management vs bad management,…

From what I’ve seen flatter (not flat) company structures have less politics and a healthier culture. When you get into the 7, 8, 9 layer manager hierarchy at a software company is when things have really gone to shit

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#252

Post by consteval »

relativ575 wrote: post #206
hn_acc1 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? After Elon bought it, you haven't heard of one bad thing about working there?

Such as?

80% of the workforce being culled without any recourse or processes?

If I got a “tell me 5 things you did last week” email I would throw my computer through the window.

I’m sorry, that’s beyond toxic. That’s radioactive culture. I understand the need for layoffs. But I also understand mutual respect.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#253

Post by nine_zeros »

vkou wrote: post #230
nine_zeros wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and that's why they are removing the 10 layers. It's not working for them any longer either.

They are trimming one of them. But the work will likely get pushed down.

And a large amount of that work will disappear because a significant amount of that work is merely maintaining reporting and answering to bosses ad-hoc.

Removal of bosses is literally more efficient because it reduces the amount of work per unit person.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#254

Post by bithead »

karaterobot wrote: post #174
Myrmornis wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience has generally been that a group of intelligent adults are capable of both planning and steering the course of their development efforts as well as carrying out those development efforts. It's not unprecedented, or a particularly radical thesis: in university research labs, as a PhD student, post-doc, or professor, you manage yourself (PhD students meeting with their advisor once every few weeks). Sure,…

I worked in a University lab during grad school, then worked in the private sector for 16 years, and have been back working on research software for the last four years. All I'll say is that the software world should not look at the research world for best practices on delivering software products, except maybe to do the exact opposite of what they do.

I worked in academia for years before moving to the commercial sector, and in academia management seemed to run on the "in the real world" mantra. Yet if the managers in academia did half of what I saw them do in the commercial sector, they'd get walked out in minutes.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#255

Post by Redoubts »

tensor wrote: post #192
donnachangstein wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in university research labs, as a PhD student, post-doc, or professor, you manage yourself That is not the real world. Turns out working for your brother-in-law they let you manage yourself too.

Yes, it is the "real world" for research, of which industry does nearly zero. Research pushes humanity forward. The sort of anti-intellectualism in your comment is part of what is causing the decline we are seeing in society today.

> research, of which industry does nearly zero

wrong and painfully ignorant

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#256

Post by vkou »

nine_zeros wrote: post #253
vkou wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are trimming one of them. But the work will likely get pushed down.

And a large amount of that work will disappear because a significant amount of that work is merely maintaining reporting and answering to bosses ad-hoc. Removal of bosses is literally more efficient because it reduces the amount of work per unit person.

They aren't removing your boss, you still have one, except your new boss (who was your former skip level) will expect all the outputs that your previous boss produced.

From you.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#257

Post by danny_codes »

wubrr wrote: post #11
justmarc wrote: post #2

So they finally figured out most managers are not just useless, but literally a drag to the company and progress?

The managers are just following the (fairly absurd imo), amazon internal processes for the most part. If the processes don't change, there are just going to be a bunch of overloaded managers. The current processes, culture, and 'principles'/dogmas are inefficient, contradictory and toxic af.

But it is neat that the internal tooling is 15 years behind the times. It’s like being teleported to 2005. The nostalgia value surely makes up for any “inefficiency” /s

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#258

Post by nine_zeros »

vkou wrote: post #256
nine_zeros wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a large amount of that work will disappear because a significant amount of that work is merely maintaining reporting and answering to bosses ad-hoc. Removal of bosses is literally more efficient because it reduces the amount of work per unit person.

They aren't removing your boss, you still have one, except your new boss (who was your former skip level) will expect all the outputs that your previous boss produced. From you .

> They aren't removing your boss, you still have one, except your new boss (who was your former skip level) will expect all the outputs that your previous boss produced.

But you do realize that previously, you had to produce outputs for your boss and skip - but now, you only need to produce for skip?

For 2 bosses, the hypothetical low/mid manager has to consider 2 bosses perspectives, 2 bosses politics, 2 bosses promos, 2 bosses peer teams, 2 bosses meetings, 2 bosses technical skill, 2 bosses status reports, 2 bosses committees, 2 bosses ad-hoc demands.

With 1 boss, that work reduces to 1 bosses perspectives, 1 bosses politics, 1 bosses promos, 1 bosses peer teams, 1 bosses meetings, 1 bosses technical skill, 1 bosses status reports, 1 bosses ad-hoc demands.

Removal of 1 boss led to 50% decline in work for 1 low/mid manager. Scale that to 10 low/mid managers, you now have a large amount of time freed up - SIMPLY because 1 single org chart bottleneck has been removed.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#259

Post by coliveira »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #28
coliveira wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably just "promoted" people under them and then immediately fired these people for "poor performance". It is an old scheme they have.

No, they did not. Managerial positions are not a promotion in Amazon, they're just a lateral move, and the process takes around 6 months... They did exactly what I said they did, moving some managers to IC in the very worst case but mostly shuffling teams around.

You probably don't understand what these people are capable of. You're right that the normal process can take several months, but I wouldn't discard them rushing a number of people to management just to lay them off as soon as possible.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#260

Post by vkou »

nine_zeros wrote: post #258
vkou wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't removing your boss, you still have one, except your new boss (who was your former skip level) will expect all the outputs that your previous boss produced. From you .

> They aren't removing your boss, you still have one, except your new boss (who was your former skip level) will expect all the outputs that your previous boss produced. But you do realize that previously, you had to produce outputs for your boss and skip - but now, you only need to produce for skip? For 2 bosses, the hypothetical low/mid manager has to consider 2 bosses perspectives, 2 bosses politics, 2 bosses prom…

If your boss was any good at his job, he did most of the reporting and communication to keep the skip level happy.

Either he wasn't, or you are just not aware of all the work he was doing.

A good manager is a shit umbrella. Most of my managers have been good.

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