‘Petty’ Amazon employee approves bug in code: ‘If I get laid off…’

Amazon intends to cut off more than 18,000 roles as part of a workforce reduction. (Representative image)

A post on the anonymous community workplace app Blind, allegedly written by a disgruntled Amazon developer, details the employee’s attempt to break the company’s product in case he is laid off.

The Amazon developer revealed that he found a bug in his co-worker’s code but approved the code in a malicious attempt to break or disrupt Amazon’s website at a time when the company is in the process of laying off thousands of workers. The developer said he found a bug or coding error in his colleague’s change request and merged it into preliminary servers. The bug could break or disrupt one of Amazon’s products if not rectified at a later stage.

“It's T minus 21 hours until layoffs at Amazon, I saw a bug in my coworker's CR and I approved it. The bug just got merged and if I get laid off, it will hit prod after I'm gone,” the disgruntled employee wrote under the username “cPk3du” on the Blind app.

#amazonlayoffspic.twitter.com/URy5ef9PNE

— Blind (@TeamBlind) January 18, 2023

“For those of you that are unaware, Amazon have been laying off since November, a week or so before Thanksgiving. It is still going on now, our ‘leaders’ have been edging for almost 3 months and the mother load of all layoffs are coming tomorrow,” he continued, adding that morale among employees was “in the dumps.”

Amazon has announced it will lay off 18,000 employees from its offices worldwide. The cuts amount to 6% of the e-commerce giant’s workforce.

The official Twitter account of the Blind app shared a screenshot of the post on Twitter, where many criticised the employee for being “petty” and “unethical.”

“No wonder why those who are affected are usually immediately escorted out, or access is cut off way before! A few folks do these pathetic things, and the remaining folks suffer,” wrote one Twitter user.

“This level of petty!” another remarked.

Reactions under the post on Blind were largely similar as many slammed the anonymous employee for “immoral” revenge tactics.