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by amznllo2 1831 days ago
Amazon has invested an insane amount of money into the recruiting/interviewing/hiring process. It has always been the Amazon mindset that workers are replaceable, and they have built their entire business on the operational model of hiring quickly, draining people of all their productive output, firing them (or pushing them so hard they quit on their own), and quickly hiring people to replace them.

When you have that mindset and investment in those areas, and especially when talking about positions that require relatively little training investment, I wouldn't be surprised if it is cheaper.

I think Amazon is reaching a point where the incoming pipeline of workers is drying up, though, and Amazon execs are apparently clueless on what to do next. It's really a situation where Amazon squeezed its workforce so hard in search of short term results, and now is reaping the long term results of a workforce that hates the company. Ironic, since one of Amazon's precious leadership principles is specifically to not do that.

All of this also applies to the corporate workforce, too, btw. There's an insane amount of attrition right now and nobody qualified wants to work at Amazon, even with the 200k+ offered salaries. It's not just a money issue, but a reputation/culture issue, and Amazon organizationally doesn't know how to solve those types of issues.

2 comments

Yep - I've ignored the many many Amazon recruiting emails I have received over the years. I have absolutely no desire to deal with their shitty employment practices and idc if it is "team dependent". I am not taking that risk.

Recently left a company with an ex-Amazon Director who was VP of Engineering. He was an absolute snake who had only really worked at Amazon for his entire career. He did his expected round of firings/PIPs at the 2 year mark, then quit himself. Many experienced engineers left around the same time since we all were tired of the shitty Amazon culture he was breeding.

The point is that now you have to watch out for who the Directory/VPs are at your current organization. If they bring in someone from Amazon expect the company culture to go downhill fast.

When supply dries up, prices go up. So what's cheaper in the short term may cost them in the longer term. Building ill will, too, can be very expensive over time.