The idea here is to appear to give employees who do the warehouse jobs some kind of aspirational future event 'if I take the job I could end up learning how to

The idea here is to appear to give employees who do the warehouse jobs some kind of aspirational future event 'if I take the job I could end up learning how to program'. So it's basically a job benefit. Not even that important if they actually either are able to code for Amazon (long shot) or anyone else. This is really no different than what traditional companies have done for years and have over a typical very small business. So you start working for Panera Bread and you think you can then become district manager and regional manager and so on. Of course only a small percentage of people get to that point. But the idea that with hard work you can makes the job that more enticing than doing the same job (as at Panera) at a small sandwich shop. It also is a way to save on wages (independent of what they would offer). If you ever have a small business you will see very generally that you have to pay an employee more for the same job they would do at a much larger company (because of both real and perceived benefits).