Amazon has spent the past month trimming its workforce in one of the biggest corporate restructurings in its history. But buried in state filings is the sharper detail: nearly 40 percent of the more than 4,700 job cuts reported in New York, California, New Jersey and Washington were engineering roles, according to WARN notices cited by CNBC.
Across the company, about 14,000 corporate positions were marked for elimination in October, the steepest cut in Amazon’s 31-year history.
The headline wasn’t just that Amazon cut jobs. It’s who got cut.
Why cut engineers at a tech company?
On paper, it looks counterintuitive. Amazon is spending aggressively on AI, cloud, and infrastructure, areas usually staffed by engineers.
Inside the company, leaders say the issue wasn’t talent, it was pace.
CEO Andy Jassy has spent the past few years trying to make Amazon run 'like the world’s largest startup,' pushing teams to shrink hierarchies, cut middle layers, and 'do more with less.' The layoffs, he said, were partly cultural, a response to slower decision cycles after years of rapid hiring.
The company told CNBC the shift is about speed and bureaucracy reduction, not AI replacing humans.
But the timing coincides with AI taking over more coding workflows across the industry.
The roles hit hardest
The WARN filings point to a specific pattern: mid-level software development engineers (SDE II) saw a disproportionately large number of exits. These are not interns or senior architects, they’re the execution layer that ships products.
Some cuts were tied to strategy pullbacks, not performance:
Gaming studios in San Diego and Irvine saw 'significant role reductions,' per internal memos cited by CNBC.
The company is halting much of its big-budget game development, including projects tied to Lord of the Rings.
Visual search and AI-shopping teams in Palo Alto were heavily impacted, even though they worked on products like Amazon Lens, launched just weeks ago.
Those teams sat closest to consumer-facing innovation. They weren’t 'cost centres' from a decade ago.
The paradox: AI up, engineers down
Jassy has repeatedly said generative AI will change how Amazon operates and will reduce corporate headcount over time, even as it creates new specialised jobs.
Human resources chief Beth Galetti echoed that logic in her memo: faster innovation with fewer layers, and more ownership per role.
The framing: not fewer people because of AI, but fewer people to enable AI-era execution.
The counter-argument is implicit: if AI supercharges development, companies may simply need fewer engineers doing the same work.
A broader industry shift, not just an Amazon story
Across the tech sector, nearly 113,000 jobs have been cut at 231 companies this year, per Layoffs.fyi, according to CNBC.
Companies are simultaneously hiring for AI roles and cutting generalist engineers, a reshuffling rather than a freeze.
The contrast is sharp:
Amazon is still hiring in AI, cloud and 'key strategic bets.'
It’s also cutting roles building products like MMOs, wearables, and visual commerce.
The company is not shrinking. It's narrowing.
For engineers, the takeaway is uncomfortable but clear: the safest jobs are moving closer to core infrastructure, AI, and monetisation, not consumer-facing experiments.
For Amazon, the risk is different: slimming down engineering teams may boost velocity, or leave gaps if AI isn’t ready to fill them.
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