[fortylove]

Previous Amazon engineer here.

When considering a change, I was told by multiple layers of management that they would be totally fine with me moving away from the office and becoming permanently remote.

But none of them would put that in an email, or ask HR for formal approval. It was always "as far as I'm concerned, it's completely fine". It was never "yes, this is something that we will stand by if it comes under pressure".

I chose to leave in the end, mostly due to the weakness of this promise. And with each new article covering their RTO debacle, I become more convinced it was the right decision. I had great teammates, and a great direct manager. But the macro situation at Amazon is a mess.

Amazon is just a loose federation of mostly autonomous orgs. This is partially why the employee experience there can vary so much depending on the org. And HR at Amazon is just another org that acts mostly autonomously from the other orgs.

Shameful.

[philipov]

> Amazon is just a lose federation of mostly autonomous orgs.

Great, that will come in handy when it comes time to break them into separate companies.

[mattbrewsbytes]

A tech company is nothing special in this regard, this is how most large companies operate.

If you don't get it in writing/email then its not approved.

[ryandrake]

Even if you get something in writing, it's not permanent or even relevant when it comes to being let go. Almost all of us are at-will. In the USA we can be fired for either no reason or any reason besides a very small list of forbidden reasons enumerated by law. If my company doesn't like my orange shirt, they can fire me over it. It doesn't matter that I have remote work in writing.

[thesuperbigfrog]

>> the macro situation at Amazon is a mess

It has been that way for a long time.

Amazon is frugal . . . especially when it comes to quality of life for employees and their families.

It shows in how many employees have worked there for more than five years and how happy most employees are.