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by TY 3556 days ago
I'm curious why only students can apply? Why not allow individual developers or companies as well?
3 comments

Because Amazon wants good PR and university pipelines for promising future employees, not subsidized contractors.
Churn and Burn
Think about what Amazon's turnover must be compared to other companies'.
Apparently, the Median Amazon tenure was only 0.1 years shorter than Google's in 2013: http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-ranked-by-turnover-...
Although interesting that Google's turnover rate is close to Amazon's, one year turnover is horrible. Other large tech companies (like Microsoft and Apple) have much lower turnover rates.
Tenure is not turn-over. If you double the size of your company every year, but nobody quits, then your average tenure is <1 year. Nobody would be able to accuse you of having high turn-over, though.

On the other hand, if you grow your company by 25% year-over-year, and your entire staff quits after 18 months, your average tenure will be >1 year.

Amazon thrives on new grads. Get a bunch, work them to the brink for 2 years, only the "strong" survive to become senior, repeat forever.