Senior AWS dev claims Amazon is quietly trying to encourage employees to quit in a push to covertly cut numbers

Some companies post fake job openings (that they have no intention of filling) so this doesn't surprise me. They post the fake openings to learn what kinds of people are job hunting, to fluff up their optics ("we're hiring!") and in some rare instances, to get some free labor with mini-projects disguised as interview tests.

I'm glad the article points out the downsides of quiet layoffs. If you make work conditions miserable, your most talented folks will probably cut and run first, as they can find a new job easier than the scrubs.

It's not just negative press. If it was just that they would pay them to go away.

They are also trying to reduce their costs of doing so, and shove it on the system instead.

In 2021, Amazon was hiring software engineers like mad. They would spam my inbox 3-4 times per week, each email from a different recruiter. Now they’re playing this game. It’s their own damn fault they over hired. Now they should pay these people a severance.

I had a company try to get me to quit when they got rid of my role and only offered me another position in its place.

Said fuck that and made them lay me off.

They're desperate to not have to pay out things like unemployment or severance pay.

It's all literally about making work a living hell for laborers until they just quit.

I hope they all start talking about constructive dismissal amongst one another and use it in their unemployment applications.

I’m so confused by this. Is this like when Big Head was being paid to hang out with the guys on the roof of Hooli? Is this guy being paid to do nothing?

On September 1st, 2023 I was told by my skip level manager and VP that my team and an adjacent team were being eliminated. They claimed we all did such good work that they wanted us to remain at Amazon. “We still have a job, just not a role.”

I was skeptical of how it was communicated–or rather not communicated–by management and I asked if severance was an option. I was repeatedly told it would be once we’d exhausted other options.

They told us our number one priority was to find another job. Every role we found had significant downsides. Lower pay, lower title, RTO, or various other things.

It was clear they wanted us to take a different role we could quit later. My management wanted to retain the headcount, but couldn’t do layoffs.

October 16th I asked my VP for the severance I was told would be available. He let me know HR wasn’t aware of what he was doing and he would have to get approval. It would take some time.

Every week for the next 2 1/2 months I asked for an update on my employment and severance package. I was either ghosted or given a variety of excuses. It’s now December 30th and I’m currently still employed by Amazon.

It hasn’t only been happening to my team. This has been happening in multiple areas as Amazon silently sacks people without being required to give them severance or announce layoffs. I’ve heard similar tactics being used at other companies–mostly large companies–and it’ll only continue in 2024 as they make decisions that drive short term profits over all else.

Amazon has always believed in treating employees in offices like machines so a percentage turns over automatically. It's part of their culture. They're just not planning to replace them this time because they over hired.

We're at the part of infinite growth. Can't make the numbers look bad compared to pandemic numbers so fire people until they balance out. Otherwise a shareholder might not make as much money as normal this year

There's quite a disparity between what's in the headline and what's in the article. One really good point brought up was

Many technology leaders then struggle to keep track of what they have tasked project teams to accomplish or to hold them accountable for deliverables. In blame cultures or environments where difficult conversations are avoided, it's often easier to let someone else go than admit to internal failings.

When you read more into what the "source" was for the article, it looks a whole lot more like an incompetent VP that's trying to play a game to avoid accountability by lying to the people under him while his own leadership is asking what in the fucking hell is going on with their section of the company.

After reading through all that, it stinks a whole lot more of mismanagement and gross incompetence on the part of Amazon than any strategy especially if you apply Occam's Razor. What's more likely, that the company who misjudged and executed poorly with a string of other stupid decisions involved suddenly schemes up another "quiet firing" strategy, or that the underperforming leadership is trying to sweep something under the rug for their own accountability?

My bet would go toward the latter. I don't see quiet firing, I see gross incompetence and fear.

This is the ol' IBM razzle dazzle.

You could file for unemployment over the lost wages for one of those lower roles. You'd get like 60% of the difference for like 16 months or so.

If that role "ends" before then, it'd stretch your wages out while you distanced yourself from a shitty employer.

With all the those articles, it's not so quiet.

#fuckingcapitalists

The unemployment claim this generates probably hurts them more than the severance...?

Even in lost position and lower wages you can still go to work and collect unemployment on the difference.