Amazon Cut Thousands of Engineers in Its Record Layoffs, Despite Saying It Needs To Innovate Faster (cnbc.com) 64
Amazon's 14,000-plus layoffs announced last month touched almost every piece of the company's sprawling business, from cloud computing and devices to advertising, retail and grocery stores. But one job category bore the brunt of cuts more than others: engineers. CNBC: Documents filed in New York, California, New Jersey and Amazon's home state of Washington showed that nearly 40% of the more than 4,700 job cuts in those states were engineering roles. The data was reported by Amazon in Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, filings to state agencies. The figures represent a segment of the total layoffs announced in October. Not all data was immediately available because of differences in state WARN reporting requirements.
Wanna stop layoffs? (Score:5, Insightful)
And that means you vote for politicians who'll do it. If you're American that means a Democrat.
Companies would normally be terrified to fire this many engineers because they'd be snapped up by competitors.
Only there aren't any, because we keep voting for people that won't enforce anti-trust law.
Elections have consequences, and your job is one of them.
The job market sucks at 50. And the people you keep voting for, what ever your reasons are, are planning to raise retirement age to 70.
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Path-tracing 101 (Score:1)
Re: Right wingers are colluding bastards (Score:1)
"UBI is completely useless without things like antitrust law."
Have you engaged with the idea that indexation solves inflation yet?
How come trust-buster Teddy Roosevelt failed to win more elections, and trusts came right back, stronger than ever?
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Companies would normally be terrified to fire this many engineers because they'd be snapped up by competitors.
Only there aren't any, because we keep voting for people that won't enforce anti-trust law.
I do not think there are no competitors. There are plenty of competitors, but said competitors have ALSO been firing engineers left, right and centre. And that "synchronized firing of engineers" can not be stoped by anti-trust laws, but it can be slowed down by unionization.
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So take all the companies you view as viable competitors to Amazon. [...] Yeah technically Walmart and Target compete with Amazon.
The '90s called, and want their Amazon back. Amazon in 2025 competes in various fronts.
If the laid off engineers worked in the "Tat-Bazaar" competitors exist beyond Target and Walmart and include the websites Costco, BJ's, and for Amazon Engineers located in LatAm, Sites like Mercado Libre.
If the fired engineers worked in Amazon Prime Video, the doors are wide open at Netfilx, Apple TV (plus or not plus, I do not remember), Disney+, HBO Max, Peackcok/Universal+, and plenty of other streamers worldwide.
In Cl
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This is true, a comment below here mentions at large companies like this that engineers don't innovate and a good case in point is Adobe.
Magento, Permia, Marketo, Allegorithmic, Workfront and if it wasn't for the EU they would have gone ahead and just bought Figma, an actual competitor that did something actual innovative. Once companies are big enough innovation is just buying your competition, particularly if you can get them before they can actually compete with you.
I've said it before but I am in favor
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If a company goes under them yeah another company can come along and buy their assets sure but a dying company isn't really competing or innovating is it? Companies go under all the time, the success rate in America is like 30% of all businesses and less for some areas.
Aquisitions have just been plainly anti consumer and anti worker in their outcomes; folks get laid off, prices go up, products get worse or just shelved entirely so the parent just catch and kills.
Let companies grow and compete if two
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but the engineers and sales people would be much better off if the company were acquired.
No, that is your assumption and on you to prove. My argument is in an acquisition many of those will be laid off in short order for "efficiency" reasons and there is precedent for that particularly in filings where consolidation of resources is presented a reason for merger particularly when the other company is struggling. Also part of my proposal is that not allowing mergers will create more competition so those people can get more jobs. If good companies with bad luck deserve to be aquired then how ca
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Plenty of acquisitions happen to stifle competition. They buy up a competitor and consolidate the industry.
Every once in a while you need a fake competitor and you get a big company propping up a failing business to give the appearance of competition. Microsoft porting office to Apple hardware investing 150 million dollars and keeping them from bankruptcy.
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> And that means you vote for politicians who'll do it. If you're American that means a Democrat.
You mean, like the Microsoft anti-trust case which was filed in 2001 when both President and House were Republicans and the Senate was 50:50?
Has there been any anti-trust case against big business since then? Maybe the Democrats did something but I can't remember anything like that offhand.
At this point, expecting elections to do anything just makes you look incredibly naive. It's clear that the only thing th
Wait so your example is from 24 years ago? (Score:2)
In exchange for zero prosecution for their anti-competitive tactics Microsoft had to give tens of millions of dollars worth of software to public schools.
Microsoft had been trying and failing for years to force publ
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Vote Democrat and live in the United States of Open Borders! Better stock up on all the guns and ammo you can find... you'll need them to check the mail. And, get used to drive-bys and losing jobs to people from outside the traditional US's borders.
But... my point of view is mine, yours is yours.
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If you're American that means a Democrat.
Layoffs are ugly and devastating for impacted people. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Harris administration would have been any better. Point to me something in her platform that you believe would have made a difference in this situation.
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Wow have you looked around lately? People have to spend more on basics. Despite Trump’s lies, the average consumer pays for tariffs. People are spending less on nonessential items. Guess which company gets less business: Walmart where people get food or Amazon where they get nonessential goods? Amazon. That is a direct effect.
Secondary effects are that the Trump trade wars have greatly impacted industry like tourism. As local businesses suffer they start layoffs. Guess where those laid off people don
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They are not laying people off people revenue or sales are down.
The topic of this report is Amazon is laying off thousands of people. Did you not read the title?
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Provocative FP, but I think you're mostly wrong and lacking in the kind of insight that will lead towards any solution. Most obviously, the Democrats are not going to solve anything. I think we are actually in a situation where too much change has become a key problem, so controlling and even limiting the changes are crucial. I sort of hate to say it, but I think the Amish may have it right when they consider newfangled ideas carefully before adopting them. (The Amish religious stuff mostly seems bogus, how
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Companies would normally be terrified to fire this many engineers because they'd be snapped up by competitors.
I wonder how many of them were really engineers, and not just some random coder with engineer in the title.
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Someone's engineering rolls? So, that's how you keep getting Natural 20's! The DM isn't gonna like that! (Or, are they making some new bakery item?)
100%: Democrat or Republican... it boils down to the lesser of two evils (or, if you've seen Master And Commander... "the lesser of two weevils").
That's how I vote... if there was a seemingly worthwhile Democrat running for office and the Republican seems like a worse choice, I'd vote that way... not that the general populace's vote counts for anything beside
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enforce anti-trust law.
Companies would normally be terrified to fire this many engineers because they'd be snapped up by competitors.
Counterpoint: It's the economy.
When the economy was good, companies spent money hiring unneeded engineers because they wanted to keep them away from their competitors. It was not a waste of money, it was strategic spending. It kept resources away from the competition, with the side benefit of allowing companies to throw manpower at any random idea that might payoff eventually.
Now that the economic outlook has changed, companies are scaling back to focus on what is profitable. Dropping engineers that they
Re:Wanna stop layoffs? (Score:5, Insightful)
If your comment was true Bill Clinton would not have pushed NAFTA through Congress, and he would not have repealed the Glass-Steagall protections. Both were gifts to large business that allowed them to grow and further their monopolistic interests. Bill also removed the national cap on commercial radio station ownership , which led to major consolidation of the news/media landscape with the telecommunications act of 1996.
Obama oversaw major mergers in Pharmaceuticals, Telecom, and airlines and didn't use the Sherman anti trust act on a single company. His affordable care act encouraged consolidation in health insurers, drugstores and hospitals to the detriment of the citizens.
Democrats being for the people and anti-monopoly only exists in speeches not ion action.
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And that means you vote for politicians who'll do it. If you're American that means a Democrat.
Vote for a party that tries its best, even violating its own rules, to subdue its most likeable people? Vote for the party that tried to block AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Zohran Mamdani, and Bernie Sanders?
What the fuck are you smoking? There is no path forward in the current system. It is entirely corrupted and broken.
Have fun participating in it.
Believe (Score:5, Insightful)
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OK, I'll bite. I don't know what the real goal is.
My guess is that they're adjusting for the over-hiring they did in 2021-2022.
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Yes, I agree on that goal. But it's not specific to this situation. Sometimes the goal of "making the most money possible" means hiring, not firing. Apparently, Amazon at one time thought hiring was the answer, since they hired all these people they are now firing. Their goal didn't *just now* become "make as much money as possible."
Re:No problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Big tech companies don't really know what to do with 10x engineers. 1x engineers they manage out or warehouse until the next layoff, 1.5x engineers get promoted, but when they get a 10x engineer they try to make them into something different. Typically this means taking them away from hands-on engineering and trying to get them to do things that are more "high impact", such as engineering management or tech leadership. If they're not good at these things this frustrates everyone involved. If they are... well, they've probably traded a 10x engineer for a 1x manager or tech lead, which likely isn't a good trade.
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Sad but true.
Innovation has nothing to do with it (Score:5, Insightful)
Most employees at big companies, including tech companies, don't innovate. They're not allowed to innovate, and if they try to do so they're told to keep working on their TPS reports or Jira tickets. Laying off such engineers won't reduce innovation at a big company.
The people big companies allow to innovate are either product/marketing types, or in tech companies people with titles like "principal" and "distinguished". Most of these people don't actually innovate either (and the innovation coming from the product/marketing types is usually bad), but occasionally you get people who can, and that's where all the innovation from big companies is.
If you want to innovate, become a founder. If you're at a big tech company, you can probably ask management and they'll tell you the same thing.
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Yeah... if you want to innovate, become a founder. That way you can create some cool new piece of technology that the one of the Mega Tech firms (likely Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, or NVIDIA) will buy up and eventually enshittify.
Nothing will really change, but at least you got your bag of money out of the experience.
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That's what the LLM-AI will be used for... fire all the engineers who can fix it when it melts down.
If I was laid off, then called back to reboot and reinstall the thing because it tanked, I'd ask for more money and a long contract that made me immune to layoffs.
If you were 'of the mean variety'... maybe a little thing that'll change the language on the admin terminals to random dead languages.
More H1B please (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me predict... (Score:3)
This will result in increased profits
This will not result in decreased prices
This will not result in improvement of products
This will not result in reining in predatory third-party sellers and scammers
This will not result in Amazon cutting a dividend
This will result in profits being redirected to executives and expanding their monopoly into new sectors
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This will result in the same operations as any other day at Amazon.
Re: Were those 'certified' engineers? (Score:3)
What the kids call "engineers" is what we called computer programmers.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
When in doubt, you can always refer to legal definitions and how different jurisdictions treat this issue in their legal systems. I have not heard anyone dispute the legitimacy of anyone who is officially licensed or registered in their jurisdiction, especially seeing how clearly defined the licensing/registration process is in those places that observe one. Of
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Generally someone claiming they are a "Professional Engineer" or PE is where people can get in trouble if they have not passed certification. People who have engineering degrees cannot use that title until they pass certification tests. To get a certification requires passing 2 tests. The first test is administered near or immediately after graduation. The second test is after 5 years that but the engineer must have worked under the supervision of a licensed PE for those 5 years.
I have known people who ha
Engineers or "Engineers"? (Score:2)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
When in doubt, you can always refer to legal definitions and how different jurisdictions treat this issue in their legal systems. I have not heard anyone dispute the legitimacy of anyone who is officially licensed or registered in their jurisdiction, especially seeing how clearly defined the licensing/registration process is in those places that observe one. O
Say it ain't so! (Score:2)
Amazon is not a good place to work (Score:2)
Amazon (Score:2)
Amazon has been an obviously sucky monopoly for some time. Put down your prime, put down your online ordering, and get your stuff somewhere else.
You know your company is evil when Walmart is a more ethical option to buy from.
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Amazon Increasing Access to CS Layoffs (Score:2)
"Amazon Future Engineer [amazonfutureengineer.com] is a comprehensive childhood-to-career program aimed at increasing access to computer science education for students from underserved and underrepresented communities."