Six current and former executives and employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the tech giant’s scramble to find focus is taking a toll on morale.
Amazon spokesman Brad Glasser said Amazon has “always been focused on innovating on behalf of customers and making bold bets that will create meaningful change in the long term.” He said the company sees opportunities for growth in Amazon Web Services and advertising as well as Prime Video, health care, satellite internet and autonomous vehicles, among others.
(…)
Now, Amazon is leaning into being even leaner. As jobs are cut and productivity comes under even greater scrutiny, workers are losing some of the leverage they gained from a tight labor market.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/27/amazon-layoffs-job-cuts/
9 replies (most recent on top)
At least 100,000 less employees by the year end.
Yes the good ones will leave on their own
Leaner and fatter (vacant real estate like HQ2). And wait until you see 2023 attrition numbers! Opportunity cost madness! Jassy gets his a financial haircut.
If you don't know where you're going any road will get you there
What? No Project Managers?? How will you ever get anything done without some mo--n with a spreadsheet and a calendar asking you "Is it done yet?" every minute of the day?
I strongly suspect leadership is factoring enhancements in productivity caused by AI. Probably they think a developer can now produce 30% more given the same amount of time, so they feel comfortable doing what they are doing.
It seems the future is that employers want senior technical engineers to drive projects without PMs. That is making me work 80h/week. I guess that that may the only way to satisfy the improvement areas of “ownership”. I interviewed in another company for a principal engineer role and during interview I was told the same. They fired many PMs and now senior and principal engineers drive projects to completion. It is tough, folks.
From my experience productivity is among the last priorities at Amazon. The most productive people are cut while the ones who are friendly with the managers and who write plenty of documentation are kept and promoted.
Employees aren't losing any leverage - they are now focused on finding new jobs before future layoffs and RTO. Shareholders/the board will step in when the situation worsens.