4 ms·

To me, these RTOs are nothing but silent layoffs. Their best and probably most expensive talent, who have the skills to land remote gigs, will depart. Amazon's

by jamies 2y ago

To me, these RTOs are nothing but silent layoffs. Their best and probably most expensive talent, who have the skills to land remote gigs, will depart. Amazon's smart enough to know this; I understand from friends who worked there they believe everyone is replaceable. I disagree.

lnsru 2y ago
It worked very well as a layoff for me. The contrast between open office with 15 tables and quiet room dedicated for work was dramatic. I will not work in places with open offices anymore for sure.
kayodelycaon 2y ago
Many companies work on the assumption everyone is replaceable because upper management doesn’t know or/and doesn’t care who is valuable. Most of the downsides of losing critical staff aren’t visible short term. The opportunity cost and loss of sustainability is never factored in and later attributed to employees not working hard enough.
- lanstin 2y ago
  management can't tell who is valuable. I am senior IC but even with cloning people's repos it isn't particularly easy to tell how good someone is.you have people who speak very confidently but don't make good code, in those subtle details that make the difference between 90% chance of serious bugs per project and 25%. Nor the difference between able to fulfill a one sentence requirement with specific technical language vs needing ,"add this to that function and this to that function then make a configuration item to control it." And maybe all the shy smart coders aren't usable with some management styles and some great managers can coax excellent work out of all sort of people.
  - anticensor 2y ago
    Worse, not even owners are legally allowed to tell who is valuable, beyond a certain point
vineyardmike 2y ago
Nearly everyone is replaceable. There is some cost, some transition pain, but everyone is replaceable. Irreplaceable employees is a management failure. This is totally going to drive out employees. But I do wonder if we have data on who is actually quitting over RTO. Is it actually their top-performing employees? This move absolutely will drive out some of their best talent… but the job market isn’t great. Genuinely, are there many desirable workplaces left that are remote? Amazon pays extremely well, I can’t think of many organizations that can afford to compete.
- fnfjfk 2y ago
  Facebook has full time remote, Airbnb too.
  - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
    Facebook only if you don't care about being promoted, from a pretty senior friend of mine who works there.
    - dgfitz 2y ago
      I don’t care about getting promoted. Sign me up!
      - OptionOfT 2y ago
        I want to grow as a Software Engineer. And for some reason companies conflate growing as a Software Engineer with becoming a manager.
- turnsout 2y ago
  > Genuinely, are there many desirable workplaces left that are remote? Are you serious? Try the entire tech industry except Amazon and Apple.
  - booleandilemma 2y ago
jerojero 2y ago
I imagine if there's an employee that's super valuable there is possibly arrangements that can be made with them; these cases would be handled individually. The rest of them though? Yeah, they can quit.
cmrdporcupine 2y ago
That's why they've waited to do this until the job market is at a downturn and it's getting harder to find positions. Especially for people at the upper end of the seniority bracket at FAANGs who are used to a very high compensation package. I walked away from my Google job 3 years ago knowing I could comfortably go wherever (and work remote, too), and took months off in-between, too. I wouldn't take that risk now.
encoderer 2y ago
The best and most expensive have always been accommodated. They still will be. And they will still hire for fully remote roles. But there are probably thousands of engineers who think they are the best..
y-c-o-m-b 2y ago
There is no shortage of "yes men" overachievers in FAANG that are fully capable of replacing another person. I have at least one on my team. They will happily take on multiple projects, more responsibility, and work over-time without fuss. Even then, it doesn't really matter much as Amazon and others are also banking heavily on generative AI to replace workers (no matter how unachievable this is currently). Andy Jassy will continue to make many millions of dollars regardless of what he does here. It's not going to matter to him if he loses a hundred top notch engineers because the products have already been built and they can always pull a Twitter and just keep things afloat as-is with plenty of people willing to come into the office 5 days a week. They simply don't give a shit.

by jamies 2y ago

lnsru 2y ago

It worked very well as a layoff for me. The contrast between open office with 15 tables and quiet room dedicated for work was dramatic. I will not work in places with open offices anymore for sure.

kayodelycaon 2y ago

Many companies work on the assumption everyone is replaceable because upper management doesn’t know or/and doesn’t care who is valuable. Most of the downsides of losing critical staff aren’t visible short term. The opportunity cost and loss of sustainability is never factored in and later attributed to employees not working hard enough.

lanstin 2y ago
management can't tell who is valuable. I am senior IC but even with cloning people's repos it isn't particularly easy to tell how good someone is.you have people who speak very confidently but don't make good code, in those subtle details that make the difference between 90% chance of serious bugs per project and 25%. Nor the difference between able to fulfill a one sentence requirement with specific technical language vs needing ,"add this to that function and this to that function then make a configuration item to control it." And maybe all the shy smart coders aren't usable with some management styles and some great managers can coax excellent work out of all sort of people.
- anticensor 2y ago
  Worse, not even owners are legally allowed to tell who is valuable, beyond a certain point

vineyardmike 2y ago

Nearly everyone is replaceable. There is some cost, some transition pain, but everyone is replaceable. Irreplaceable employees is a management failure. This is totally going to drive out employees. But I do wonder if we have data on who is actually quitting over RTO. Is it actually their top-performing employees? This move absolutely will drive out some of their best talent… but the job market isn’t great. Genuinely, are there many desirable workplaces left that are remote? Amazon pays extremely well, I can’t think of many organizations that can afford to compete.

fnfjfk 2y ago
Facebook has full time remote, Airbnb too.
- disgruntledphd2 2y ago
  Facebook only if you don't care about being promoted, from a pretty senior friend of mine who works there.
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    I don’t care about getting promoted. Sign me up!
    - OptionOfT 2y ago
      I want to grow as a Software Engineer. And for some reason companies conflate growing as a Software Engineer with becoming a manager.
turnsout 2y ago
> Genuinely, are there many desirable workplaces left that are remote? Are you serious? Try the entire tech industry except Amazon and Apple.
- booleandilemma 2y ago

jerojero 2y ago

I imagine if there's an employee that's super valuable there is possibly arrangements that can be made with them; these cases would be handled individually. The rest of them though? Yeah, they can quit.

cmrdporcupine 2y ago

That's why they've waited to do this until the job market is at a downturn and it's getting harder to find positions. Especially for people at the upper end of the seniority bracket at FAANGs who are used to a very high compensation package. I walked away from my Google job 3 years ago knowing I could comfortably go wherever (and work remote, too), and took months off in-between, too. I wouldn't take that risk now.

encoderer 2y ago

The best and most expensive have always been accommodated. They still will be. And they will still hire for fully remote roles. But there are probably thousands of engineers who think they are the best..

y-c-o-m-b 2y ago

There is no shortage of "yes men" overachievers in FAANG that are fully capable of replacing another person. I have at least one on my team. They will happily take on multiple projects, more responsibility, and work over-time without fuss. Even then, it doesn't really matter much as Amazon and others are also banking heavily on generative AI to replace workers (no matter how unachievable this is currently). Andy Jassy will continue to make many millions of dollars regardless of what he does here. It's not going to matter to him if he loses a hundred top notch engineers because the products have already been built and they can always pull a Twitter and just keep things afloat as-is with plenty of people willing to come into the office 5 days a week. They simply don't give a shit.