As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done
we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce
Are we done for?
No. Amazon has been trying to cut head count for years now. They were hoping RTO5 would do the trick but because every company is trying to do the same thing people didn’t have a ship to jump to.
“Our AI is so great!” Is a way to mask that their finances aren’t good and they dramatically made the wrong bet in 2021 hiring so much.
Honestly most of the time at Amazon you’re doing more meetings and red tape than you are coding so I don’t expect AI to magically fix shit for them.
They’re actually significantly below their current hiring target at the executive level and people are leaving left and right.
When I was last there a while ago people were leaving but they were hoping for a lot more of an exodus. Particularly in the L6/7 level.
Has that changed?
but they were hoping for a lot more of an exodus. Particularly in the L6/7 level.
Higher is more senior right? Counting up from L1?
If so, that’s an insane amount of ego, to want less of that talent. Wow.
But I bet the drugs they do are amazing, though.
It’s a bit misleading for engineering.
Every Engineer starts at L4. That’s the junior position.
L5 is the mid-senior level. Most SDEs in Amazon are L5 and that’s considered a terminal position. For management this is the “junior” (for lack of a better term) tier
L6 is Senior but it’s closer to staff engineers at other companies. You tend to do more cross team work. This is also where a glut of managers are at
L7 is Principal engineer and senior manager. Only about 2% of engineers get here. Managers at this lever oversee multiple teams.
L8+ is fancy external hires and directors.
The problem is that Amazon expects a lot of people to churn out before you hit the L6/7 levels. They dangle a carrot of super high pay for those tiers but don’t actually expect to pay it long term. There’s quite a few that have stayed longer than expected. And it’s hard to get out because they know how to game the system to demonstrate “impact”. Now that isn’t to say there aren’t a lot of good managers and engineers at this tier either. There are really good people at this tier. It’s just Amazon doesn’t want that many at this tier for long.
Also if the idea of having an expected churn and dangling pay that no one can hit sounds dystopian and awful it is. Amazon sucks.
The people who are predicting that AI will replace X% of jobs are usually not qualified to make that determination. They don’t do those jobs, and they don’t have any idea what is involved in those peoples jobs. They are way too high up the corporate ladder to have actually been doing any real work in the last 10 years. They were sold some AI product which promises to lay off thousands of workers, and they seem to have believed it implicitly.
What’s sickening to me is how enthusiastic they seem to be about ruining their employees lives
Ironically, save for specific positions that require facetime and political shrewdness, it is these same prognosticators whose roles can most readily be fulfilled by Ai
It takes a special type of shithead to threaten peoples’ jobs to their face without even knowing what the fuck they are talking about.
This is going to be the threat that EVERY employee will hear over the next several years, whenever they ask for any sort of a raise, promotion, etc. “Just be glad we don’t replace you with AI.”
Can we quit posting this baseless fear mongering? It is simply powerful people trying to demoralize workers and acting like it is legitimate news is playing into their hands.
Time for the AI teams to suddenly have tech issues.
“Sorry, the whole codebase is just gone! We have no idea what happened!”
“Must have been the S3 storage”
Ah yes those famous “Agents”. They will of course write themselves, adapt themselves to changing environment and run on their own without any supervision.
Yes. Exactly. They’ll also deploy upgrades to themselves painlessly. Thankfully that’s never been a huge ongoing pain felt by everyone paying attention.
(I couldn’t resisit adding a “yes, and” to your point.
Edit: And the AI agents will back themselves up correctly, too! We trained them on the activities of all currently living IT engineers, and the average of our work always results in a successful backup…
If that wasn’t true, we would be having a new ransomware crisis every month…
I’m sure glad we live in one of the good timelines, and have plenty of clean correct code and configuration data to train our AI on!
(This is, of course, sarcasm. Companies that shift to AI IT agents today can expect to very quickly reach today’s median IT outcome. There’s not enough popcorn in the world for what is coming.)
Something I think should be on the same level as “if buying isn’t owning piracy isn’t theft” is something like “if an ai/robot can take my job why should I have to work”
Quick recap for future historians:
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for a really brief part of its history, humanity tried to give kindness a go. A half-hearted attempt at best, but there were things like DEI programs, for instance, attempting to create a gentler, more accepting world for everyone. At the very least, trying to appear human to the people they managed was seen as a good attribute for Leaders.
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some people felt that their God-given right to be assholes to everyone was being taken away (it’s right there in the Bible: be a jerk to your neighbor, take away his job and f##k his wife)
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Assholes came back in full force, with a vengeance. Not that they had ever disappeared, but now they relished the opportunity to be openly mean for no reason again. Once again, True Leaders were judged by their ability to drain every drop of blood from their employees and take their still-beating hearts as an offering to the Almighty Shareholders.
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I get the feeling that simply working at Amazon means your job is at risk.
That’s pretty much how it goes yeah lol
Amazon is currently hemorrhaging executive level and above engineers. Amazon will have to be replacing these jobs with AI cause every one of value has already left/is leaving and filling those jobs with qualified people at that level is actually a lot more difficult than more junior level positions.
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We need to be taxing the companies for every job they replace with ai and use that to pay for it.
We are fucked, The rich are literally creating armies of robots.
Well that’s just good, quality managing right there.
Between AI and Robotics, we will likely have a permanently unemployed segment of close to 50%, or even more, within the next decade.
Not everyone will be able to be retrained to be a robotics engineer or AI programmer, and many, many jobs that are considered entry-level will disappear. Imagine a world where most fast food and retail workers are unemployed.
When 40% of America is unemployed, the government will be faced with 2 options - Universal Basic Income, or reducing the population by 40%. Which solution will each party embrace, and how will they accomplish their objectives?
Conclusions from a reductionist point of view. Circumstances, problems and solutions are generally complicated.
Moving on.
How’s the view with your head in the sand?
Which solution will each party embrace, and how will they accomplish their objectives?
Both American partiesEach party will solve it the way they have solved climate change.
Did someone tell Amazon that some of the staff they will let go will have access to AI as well and will turn around and start competing with them? Someone should as AI is not just for corporations. In fact it is and may continue to benefit individuals and small teams more.
Can’t wait for all the random deals on things when the AI randomly cuts prices of things or ships me pallets of things.
Edit: Things!