7 ms·

Amazon braces for another major round of layoffs, 14,000 jobs at risk

118 points by niuzeta 8mo ago

alephnerd 8mo ago
https://www.aboutamazon.in/news/economic-impact/amazon-economic-impact-india-40-billion-dollar-investment https://www.aboutamazon.in/news/economic-impact/amazon-econo... and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746543
- pvtmert 8mo ago
  > Under Prime Minister Modi's leadership, India has successfully built digital infrastructure that connects businesses to customers, small towns to global markets, and traditional enterprises to modern technology. I smell corruption in this sentence
mickle00 8mo ago
Jassy's only lever for shareholder value. Sad.
- alephnerd 8mo ago
  They're fine expanding in India. Turns out announcing a $100k fee to distract from the Trump Gold Card announcement during the same press conference [3] leads to a reverse brain drain [0] and a $35B commitment to invest in India [1]. For example, much of AWS SageMaker's team is out of AWS India, and unofficially Amazonians on work visas are being offered transfers to India [2] while paying L6/7 [4] roughly the same as they would in Germany [5]. I warned people on HN for years to not be greedy with remote work (1-2 day hybrid is not the end of the world) and not be pissy to Americans of non-European heritage and derogatorily calling us H1Bs. Either way those of us who know how to take advantage of brutal raw capitalism win - especially as this administration is helping further enhance this offshoring [6] with technology transfers [7]. [0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-23/us-loses-top-tech-talent-to-india-in-wake-of-h-1b-visa-chaos https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-23/us-loses-... [1] - https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-35-billion-india-investment https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-35-bill... [2] - https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonemployees/comments/1qfesvs/6_years_at_amazon_on_h1b_and_currently_on_wwops/ https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonemployees/comments/1qfesvs/6_... [3] - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-signs-proclamation-that-adds-100k-annual-fee-to-h-1b-visas-for-high-skilled-workers https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-signs-proclamati... [4] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/software-engineer/locations/india?country=113 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/software-en... [5] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/software-engineer/locations/germany?country=91 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/software-en... [6] - https://youtube.com/watch?v=uDtm-k6JvI8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=uDtm-k6JvI8 [7] - https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2025/04/the-india-us-trust-initiative-advancing-semiconductor-supply-chain-cooperation https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2025/04/the-india-us-tru...
  - refulgentis 8mo ago
    Same at Google (Poland and India are doing great)
  - vjvjvjvjghv 8mo ago
    “ Turns out announcing a $100k fee to distract from the Gold Card leads to a reserve brain drain” Seems a lot of the Trump policies go exactly the opposite of what was planned. The supply people at my company are telling me that there is a huge push to move manufacturing away from the US due to tariffs.
    - Mountain_Skies 8mo ago
      The United States has a labor pool of over 170 million people. If you can't find Amazon workers in a country of that size, it's due to one thing and one thing only: you're a bigot who hates Americans. We can dance around it and dress it up like we have for the past thirty years but it's time to call it for what it is: bigotry and hatred wearing a dress of openness. Just admit what you are instead of continuing this absurd dance that pretends 170 million people are all defective. Now mash that down vote button to feel good about your bigotry that you've written "VIRTUE" all over to hide the destructive force it truly is.
      - brainwad 8mo ago
        When you buy services, is your bar good enough, or do you look for best value for money? And are those who try to optimise bigots merely for not buying from their local provider? But anyway, the decrease in hiring in the US will be mostly driven by foreigners that will still be hired, but now not relocate to the US. Why hire someone on a H1-B at an extra cost of 100k when you can hire the same person in some other office and not pay that cost? It's a self-own by the US.
        elcritch 8mo ago
        That’s just another way of admitting that H1-B was always about lowering costs rather than lack of talent.
mikert89 8mo ago
Right now, amazon is packed full of L6 and L7 software managers, making 450-900k a year, that: 1. dont understand ai 2. have had the same skill set for 10 years 3. are working on autopilot, not trying to get promoted, just collecting paychecks 4. taking zero risk, follow protocol, play politics for the company to move forwards, they need a massive purge. 15k is childs play. too many employees that make too much money to just maintain status quo
- jahnu 8mo ago
  Let me ask this question. Why can Netflix make a decent tv app and Amazon cannot?
  - mikert89 8mo ago
    amazon has mediocre quality talent that they grind to the bone. which worked when the company just needed raw execution. amazon has an operations culture, which was important for: 1. scaling retail 2. keeping the servers running at AWS all the low hanging fruit has been picked, they need a fundamentally different employee base
    - spwa4 8mo ago
      > all the low hanging fruit has been picked, they need a fundamentally different employee base As anyone in software development can tell you, this does not compute. You cannot do things this way, and any experienced software engineer can tell you it doesn't work. Besides, it's not how Amazon worked at all. Amazon is famous for having systematically verified ("mathematically proved") how it's core systems operated. Whereas, for example Google only did that in redesigns when the systems had already collapsed once or twice due to scale, not from early on. And even that is superior to how Microsoft or Oracle did it: they bought Google employees and had them design an iteration of what Google is running (yes, is running, not was running. Google redesigned it's core systems ... and then mostly didn't migrate. Borg was never replaced with Omega and the main large system that they migrated to is Spanner. Kubernetes isn't Borg. Kubernetes grew out of Borg's successor. Except Google never migrated away from Borg) https://cacm.acm.org/practice/systems-correctness-practices-at-amazon-web-services/ https://cacm.acm.org/practice/systems-correctness-practices-... I'm sure Amazon had entire departments, much larger than core engineering, just like every other company, where it looked like everything was operationally focused. That doesn't mean core engineering doesn't exist, or does nothing.
otterley 8mo ago
[redacted due to non-useful information]
- elseweather 8mo ago
  This is the WARN notice for the _previous_ layoff in October. Presumably they'll file another one for the next wave this week.
- kungfulkoder 8mo ago
  You're making a common mistake. WARN is for the _previous_ layoff. The way they execute these, they bump out your effective last day such that there is no WARN notice till after it's already announced.
  - otterley 8mo ago
    Where do you see that from the text of the letter to the ESD?
    - nlawalker 8mo ago
      "While WARN requires only 60 days’ advance notice, Amazon is providing at least 90 days’ notice to all affected employees before their separations are scheduled to occur. Affected employees who accept internal transfer opportunities at Amazon prior to their separation date will not be separated as a result of this action." These people were told they were being laid off in October but remain on payroll. What Amazon is "bracing" for is another one of these announcements, much larger, announcing people who will actually separate from the company 90 days later. They will find out on or around the same day the WARN notice is posted.
      - otterley 8mo ago
        Oh, darn. You are right. Thanks for the clarification.
    - patch_cable 8mo ago
loeg 8mo ago
10% over a year, split into two waves isn't that extreme. It seems like 5%/year is sort of industry norm.
- refulgentis 8mo ago
  Not sure of your familiarity with FAANG pre-2022, but this is absolutely not the norm.
  - joe_mamba 8mo ago
    ZIRP was also not the norm. Times change though.
    - mupuff1234 8mo ago
      But these are profitable companies, now their cash on hand can actually earn interest.
      - deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
      - joe_mamba 8mo ago
        >But these are profitable companies Q: You know what investors and shareholders love more than having 1 billion dollars? A: Having 2 billion dollars. And with all the money being burned on AI, having 2 billion is better than 1. If mass layoffs causes the stock to go from 1 to 2, then guess what's gonna happen? In the ZIRP era companies would hire needlessly to get the stock up because that signaled growth to investors. Now it's the opposite, you trim because that gets the stock up, not because they conspire together to lay off people.
      - loeg 8mo ago
        Why is the highest and best use of a company's free cash paying the least productive employees, instead of returning cash to shareholders or investing it in something more productive?
mjr00 8mo ago
There's some stuff that, culturally, I don't think Amazon will ever do well. Amazon Games should be shuttered entirely. Their latest game was a really embarrassing flop; "King of Meat", which they expected to have 100,000 daily concurrent players, reached a max of 320 concurrents during a free weekend[0]. Have you heard of a single Amazon Prime Original Movie[1]? Likely only one -- 2025's War of the Worlds, which became a meme because it is legitimately one of the worst movies of all time. Amazon is built on a culture of doing the most boring, data-driven, predictable thing possible and executing well. Which is awesome when you're dealing with databases and the logistics of delivering packages. But it's effectively the opposite of games, movies and other creative media where you have to trust a single person or small group of people with a vision. Otherwise you get what Amazon gives, which is unappetizing slop. If I were Jassy I'd cut off these product lines entirely. It's just not a good fit for how Amazon operates. [0] https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/king-of-meat-studio-was-reportedly-expecting-100-000-concurrent-players-but-it-peaked-at-320-on-steam-and-that-was-during-a-free-weekend/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/king-of-meat-studio-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_Prime_Video_original_films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_Prime_Video_ori...
- tayo42 8mo ago
  Fallouts been pretty good. Not sure what they did right there
  - add-sub-mul-div 8mo ago
    Nolan and Joy are in charge of that one, they likely had the power to negotiate keeping control rather than letting Amazon fuck it up with algorithms. That's my best guess about why it's good and everything else on Amazon is crap.
  - goostavos 8mo ago
    I found the first season OK enough, but the second season to be unwatchable.
    - 8mo ago
hahahahhaah 8mo ago
An AI bubble pop is going to create depression if this sort of thinking continues. Fire bright people to spend money on questuonable quality AI. If others follow we are saying "all in" and shoving the poker chips on more model improvements.
int_19h 8mo ago
That is why software engineers also need unions. (but the time to organize was back when we still had the upper hand)
- futuraperdita 8mo ago
  > but the time to organize was back when we still had the upper hand This is learned helplessness. It's not going to get better for software engineers anytime soon, I'm afraid. The time to organize is like planting a tree: the best time is 20 years ago, and the second best time is now. Especially if you're an early-career SWE, you seem to have little to lose anyhow.
  - thedevilslawyer 8mo ago
    There's no unions for H1B workers. If there's any union stepping up for their interest, it would find mass enrollment tomorrow. Unfortunately, there isn't support by non-h1b engineers, let alone unions.
    - Arch-TK 8mo ago
      Not everywhere is in America you know... And non-H1B workers are probably precisely the kinds of workers that should be the ones rocking the boat.
      - nine_k 8mo ago
        Rocking the boat so much as to get fired, fail to find another employer before the visa expires, and be sent back home? A terrifying perspective for many.
        futuraperdita 8mo ago
        Just to clarify that the parent may have edited, but wrote "non-H1B" workers, so they would be speaking about domestic / citizen employees, not ones on visa.
elcritch 8mo ago
Excellent, get ready for more large outages at AWS and a proliferation of bugs across the rest of Amazon’s empire. For the last few months I still randomly get errors opening audible. You know, to buy more books.
cute_boi 8mo ago
Outsourcing is the main reason for the layoffs, but I’m sure no one is going to mention it.
forgetbook 8mo ago
The only AWS service I still use is SES, for sending emails from client applications. Surely that can be self hosted? Can anyone reccommend a competitor?
- jfil 8mo ago
  Postmark
jonehiskey1 8mo ago
US tech postings -36% below pre-COVID. India? +47%.
- narmiouh 8mo ago
  source?

118 points by niuzeta 8mo ago

https://www.aboutamazon.in/news/economic-impact/amazon-economic-impact-india-40-billion-dollar-investment https://www.aboutamazon.in/news/economic-impact/amazon-econo... and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746543

pvtmert 8mo ago
> Under Prime Minister Modi's leadership, India has successfully built digital infrastructure that connects businesses to customers, small towns to global markets, and traditional enterprises to modern technology. I smell corruption in this sentence

mickle00 8mo ago

Jassy's only lever for shareholder value. Sad.

alephnerd 8mo ago
They're fine expanding in India. Turns out announcing a $100k fee to distract from the Trump Gold Card announcement during the same press conference [3] leads to a reverse brain drain [0] and a $35B commitment to invest in India [1]. For example, much of AWS SageMaker's team is out of AWS India, and unofficially Amazonians on work visas are being offered transfers to India [2] while paying L6/7 [4] roughly the same as they would in Germany [5]. I warned people on HN for years to not be greedy with remote work (1-2 day hybrid is not the end of the world) and not be pissy to Americans of non-European heritage and derogatorily calling us H1Bs. Either way those of us who know how to take advantage of brutal raw capitalism win - especially as this administration is helping further enhance this offshoring [6] with technology transfers [7]. [0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-23/us-loses-top-tech-talent-to-india-in-wake-of-h-1b-visa-chaos https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-23/us-loses-... [1] - https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-35-billion-india-investment https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-35-bill... [2] - https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonemployees/comments/1qfesvs/6_years_at_amazon_on_h1b_and_currently_on_wwops/ https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonemployees/comments/1qfesvs/6_... [3] - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-signs-proclamation-that-adds-100k-annual-fee-to-h-1b-visas-for-high-skilled-workers https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-signs-proclamati... [4] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/software-engineer/locations/india?country=113 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/software-en... [5] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/software-engineer/locations/germany?country=91 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/software-en... [6] - https://youtube.com/watch?v=uDtm-k6JvI8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=uDtm-k6JvI8 [7] - https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2025/04/the-india-us-trust-initiative-advancing-semiconductor-supply-chain-cooperation https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2025/04/the-india-us-tru...
- refulgentis 8mo ago
  Same at Google (Poland and India are doing great)
- vjvjvjvjghv 8mo ago
  “ Turns out announcing a $100k fee to distract from the Gold Card leads to a reserve brain drain” Seems a lot of the Trump policies go exactly the opposite of what was planned. The supply people at my company are telling me that there is a huge push to move manufacturing away from the US due to tariffs.
  - Mountain_Skies 8mo ago
    The United States has a labor pool of over 170 million people. If you can't find Amazon workers in a country of that size, it's due to one thing and one thing only: you're a bigot who hates Americans. We can dance around it and dress it up like we have for the past thirty years but it's time to call it for what it is: bigotry and hatred wearing a dress of openness. Just admit what you are instead of continuing this absurd dance that pretends 170 million people are all defective. Now mash that down vote button to feel good about your bigotry that you've written "VIRTUE" all over to hide the destructive force it truly is.
    - brainwad 8mo ago
      When you buy services, is your bar good enough, or do you look for best value for money? And are those who try to optimise bigots merely for not buying from their local provider? But anyway, the decrease in hiring in the US will be mostly driven by foreigners that will still be hired, but now not relocate to the US. Why hire someone on a H1-B at an extra cost of 100k when you can hire the same person in some other office and not pay that cost? It's a self-own by the US.
      - elcritch 8mo ago
        That’s just another way of admitting that H1-B was always about lowering costs rather than lack of talent.

mikert89 8mo ago

Right now, amazon is packed full of L6 and L7 software managers, making 450-900k a year, that: 1. dont understand ai 2. have had the same skill set for 10 years 3. are working on autopilot, not trying to get promoted, just collecting paychecks 4. taking zero risk, follow protocol, play politics for the company to move forwards, they need a massive purge. 15k is childs play. too many employees that make too much money to just maintain status quo

jahnu 8mo ago
Let me ask this question. Why can Netflix make a decent tv app and Amazon cannot?
- mikert89 8mo ago
  amazon has mediocre quality talent that they grind to the bone. which worked when the company just needed raw execution. amazon has an operations culture, which was important for: 1. scaling retail 2. keeping the servers running at AWS all the low hanging fruit has been picked, they need a fundamentally different employee base
  - spwa4 8mo ago
    > all the low hanging fruit has been picked, they need a fundamentally different employee base As anyone in software development can tell you, this does not compute. You cannot do things this way, and any experienced software engineer can tell you it doesn't work. Besides, it's not how Amazon worked at all. Amazon is famous for having systematically verified ("mathematically proved") how it's core systems operated. Whereas, for example Google only did that in redesigns when the systems had already collapsed once or twice due to scale, not from early on. And even that is superior to how Microsoft or Oracle did it: they bought Google employees and had them design an iteration of what Google is running (yes, is running, not was running. Google redesigned it's core systems ... and then mostly didn't migrate. Borg was never replaced with Omega and the main large system that they migrated to is Spanner. Kubernetes isn't Borg. Kubernetes grew out of Borg's successor. Except Google never migrated away from Borg) https://cacm.acm.org/practice/systems-correctness-practices-at-amazon-web-services/ https://cacm.acm.org/practice/systems-correctness-practices-... I'm sure Amazon had entire departments, much larger than core engineering, just like every other company, where it looked like everything was operationally focused. That doesn't mean core engineering doesn't exist, or does nothing.

otterley 8mo ago

[redacted due to non-useful information]

elseweather 8mo ago
This is the WARN notice for the _previous_ layoff in October. Presumably they'll file another one for the next wave this week.
kungfulkoder 8mo ago
You're making a common mistake. WARN is for the _previous_ layoff. The way they execute these, they bump out your effective last day such that there is no WARN notice till after it's already announced.
- otterley 8mo ago
  Where do you see that from the text of the letter to the ESD?
  - nlawalker 8mo ago
    "While WARN requires only 60 days’ advance notice, Amazon is providing at least 90 days’ notice to all affected employees before their separations are scheduled to occur. Affected employees who accept internal transfer opportunities at Amazon prior to their separation date will not be separated as a result of this action." These people were told they were being laid off in October but remain on payroll. What Amazon is "bracing" for is another one of these announcements, much larger, announcing people who will actually separate from the company 90 days later. They will find out on or around the same day the WARN notice is posted.
    - otterley 8mo ago
      Oh, darn. You are right. Thanks for the clarification.
  - patch_cable 8mo ago

loeg 8mo ago

10% over a year, split into two waves isn't that extreme. It seems like 5%/year is sort of industry norm.

refulgentis 8mo ago
Not sure of your familiarity with FAANG pre-2022, but this is absolutely not the norm.
- joe_mamba 8mo ago
  ZIRP was also not the norm. Times change though.
  - mupuff1234 8mo ago
    But these are profitable companies, now their cash on hand can actually earn interest.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
    - joe_mamba 8mo ago
      >But these are profitable companies Q: You know what investors and shareholders love more than having 1 billion dollars? A: Having 2 billion dollars. And with all the money being burned on AI, having 2 billion is better than 1. If mass layoffs causes the stock to go from 1 to 2, then guess what's gonna happen? In the ZIRP era companies would hire needlessly to get the stock up because that signaled growth to investors. Now it's the opposite, you trim because that gets the stock up, not because they conspire together to lay off people.
    - loeg 8mo ago
      Why is the highest and best use of a company's free cash paying the least productive employees, instead of returning cash to shareholders or investing it in something more productive?

mjr00 8mo ago

There's some stuff that, culturally, I don't think Amazon will ever do well. Amazon Games should be shuttered entirely. Their latest game was a really embarrassing flop; "King of Meat", which they expected to have 100,000 daily concurrent players, reached a max of 320 concurrents during a free weekend[0]. Have you heard of a single Amazon Prime Original Movie[1]? Likely only one -- 2025's War of the Worlds, which became a meme because it is legitimately one of the worst movies of all time. Amazon is built on a culture of doing the most boring, data-driven, predictable thing possible and executing well. Which is awesome when you're dealing with databases and the logistics of delivering packages. But it's effectively the opposite of games, movies and other creative media where you have to trust a single person or small group of people with a vision. Otherwise you get what Amazon gives, which is unappetizing slop. If I were Jassy I'd cut off these product lines entirely. It's just not a good fit for how Amazon operates. [0] https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/king-of-meat-studio-was-reportedly-expecting-100-000-concurrent-players-but-it-peaked-at-320-on-steam-and-that-was-during-a-free-weekend/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/king-of-meat-studio-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_Prime_Video_original_films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_Prime_Video_ori...

tayo42 8mo ago
Fallouts been pretty good. Not sure what they did right there
- add-sub-mul-div 8mo ago
  Nolan and Joy are in charge of that one, they likely had the power to negotiate keeping control rather than letting Amazon fuck it up with algorithms. That's my best guess about why it's good and everything else on Amazon is crap.
- goostavos 8mo ago
  I found the first season OK enough, but the second season to be unwatchable.
  - 8mo ago

hahahahhaah 8mo ago

An AI bubble pop is going to create depression if this sort of thinking continues. Fire bright people to spend money on questuonable quality AI. If others follow we are saying "all in" and shoving the poker chips on more model improvements.

int_19h 8mo ago

That is why software engineers also need unions. (but the time to organize was back when we still had the upper hand)

futuraperdita 8mo ago
> but the time to organize was back when we still had the upper hand This is learned helplessness. It's not going to get better for software engineers anytime soon, I'm afraid. The time to organize is like planting a tree: the best time is 20 years ago, and the second best time is now. Especially if you're an early-career SWE, you seem to have little to lose anyhow.
- thedevilslawyer 8mo ago
  There's no unions for H1B workers. If there's any union stepping up for their interest, it would find mass enrollment tomorrow. Unfortunately, there isn't support by non-h1b engineers, let alone unions.
  - Arch-TK 8mo ago
    Not everywhere is in America you know... And non-H1B workers are probably precisely the kinds of workers that should be the ones rocking the boat.
    - nine_k 8mo ago
      Rocking the boat so much as to get fired, fail to find another employer before the visa expires, and be sent back home? A terrifying perspective for many.
      - futuraperdita 8mo ago
        Just to clarify that the parent may have edited, but wrote "non-H1B" workers, so they would be speaking about domestic / citizen employees, not ones on visa.

elcritch 8mo ago

Excellent, get ready for more large outages at AWS and a proliferation of bugs across the rest of Amazon’s empire. For the last few months I still randomly get errors opening audible. You know, to buy more books.

cute_boi 8mo ago

Outsourcing is the main reason for the layoffs, but I’m sure no one is going to mention it.

forgetbook 8mo ago

The only AWS service I still use is SES, for sending emails from client applications. Surely that can be self hosted? Can anyone reccommend a competitor?

jfil 8mo ago
Postmark

jonehiskey1 8mo ago

US tech postings -36% below pre-COVID. India? +47%.

narmiouh 8mo ago
source?