My understanding (from friends who have interviewed at Amazon and received offers) is that they are offered a $160k base... plus a $XXX bonus (guaranteed?) ever

My understanding (from friends who have interviewed at Amazon and received offers) is that they are offered a $160k base... plus a $XXX bonus (guaranteed?) every year, to get their cash comp competitive with all the other tech companies. So while this might indeed result in pay bumps, I highly doubt the bumps will be very large. This is also a "simplify how we do offers" thing.