Ex-AWS techie reveals 3 'wild' tricks Amazon employees use to avoid returning to office

Amazon employees will have to report to office five days a week starting January 2, 2025, CEO Andy Jassy said. (Image credit: AFP)

A software engineer who used to work with Amazon Web Services (AWS) until June 2023 has listed three "wild" tricks the tech giant's employees use to avoid returning to the office. Colorado-based John McBride called it "true ingenuity and innovation" which was not focused only on shipping items for customers.

The techie has been speaking up against the company's recently announced strict return-to-office mandate after he himself had to quit after being asked to move to a different city and work from the office.

"When I worked at AWS, engineers went to wild lengths to avoid returning to the office," McBride wrote in a now-viral X post that has received more than a million views. "1. The classic: badging in during lunch, grabbing a free coffee or snack, and immediately leaving. This worked for a few weeks until they started tracking time actually 'in' the office."

"2. My personal favorite: renaming home WiFi networks to the same name as the network of your office. Then, when you'd log in for the day, you'd be marked 'in office' by the reporting software. This worked for awhile but eventually, IT made the reporting software more robust and didn't just check network names."

McBride also mentioned some "under-the-table arrangements" that would enable people to mark their attendance at work with their badges even if they are not physically present at the office. "Some people made deals where they'd leave their badge at an office and they'd have other people badge in and out for them. Risky, but knew someone who did this for months," he remarked.

McBride's post encouraged other professionals to share their hacks.

"I knew a guy at another big tech company who would arrive near midnight, tap in, wait 5 minutes until after midnight and tap again and successfully cover 2 days within 10 minutes. The exploits are gutty and I’m surprised he still is allowed to work there, for many reasons," wrote software engineer @BowTiedStack.

"My office only requires a badge walking into the building and using the elevator to go up… I mean. Nothing stops you from badging in at 9 am and then just, turning around and leaving. I don’t do that, just saying not sure anything is stopping us," added Simon (@Simchabenmoshe).

Others pointed out that if employees have been doing this and not let it affect their work and attract the management's notice, then it's just another proof that software developers can indeed work well without having to go to the office.

"So all those measures but none noticed they weren’t actually in? Sorta proves they can work from home fine then," Andrew Godman (@Andrew_Godman) commented. "There is 0 need to force any dev back into an office. With Slack and Discord and Zoom, we can just sit on that all day if need be," added software engineer Peter Steele (@pb_steele).

Meanwhile, in a separate post on X, McBride claimed that Amazon's return-to-office mandate has more to do with cutting costs for the company than with "inventing and collaborating" as has been claimed by CEO Andy Jassy. The software engineer claimed it was a "strategic move" forcing employees to quit rather than laying them off to avoid bad press and reduce operational costs.