Amazon has cut thousands of engineers in record layoffs, filings reveal.

AmazonThe more than 14,000 job cuts announced last month affected nearly every part of the company’s vast business, from cloud computing and devices to advertising, retail and grocery stores. However, one profession was more likely to bear the brunt of the cuts than others: engineers.

Documents filed in New York, California, New Jersey and Amazon’s home state of Washington show that nearly 40% of the more than 4,700 jobs cut in those states were in engineering roles. The data was reported in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) document filed by Amazon with state authorities.

This figure represents a fraction of the total number of job cuts announced in October. Due to varying state WARN reporting requirements, not all data is readily available.

By announcing the most significant job cuts in its 31-year history, Amazon joins the ranks of tech companies that have cut jobs this year even as cash piles grew and profits soared. A total of about 113,000 job cuts were made at 231 technology companies, according to Layoffs.fyi, continuing a trend that began in 2022 as companies readjusted to life after the coronavirus pandemic.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been on a multi-year mission to transform the company’s culture into one that operates like what he calls “the world’s biggest startup company.” He is trying to make Amazon leaner and less bureaucratic by encouraging employees to reduce bloat and do more with less.

CNBC previously reported that Amazon is expected to implement further job cuts in January.

The company also said it is shifting resources to increase investment in artificial intelligence. The technology is already poised to reshape Amazon’s white-collar workforce, with Jassy predicting in June that the company’s workforce will decline in the coming years as AI improves efficiency.

In the memo announcing the layoffs, Human Resources Director Beth Galetti highlighted the importance of innovation, which requires the company to innovate with fewer people, especially engineers.

“This generation of AI is the most revolutionary technology since the Internet, allowing companies to innovate much faster than ever before,” Galetti wrote. “We believe we need to organize more efficiently, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and our business.”

Amazon said in a statement that the majority of the layoffs are not due to AI, and the larger goal is to reduce bureaucracy and focus on speed.

Jassy said on Amazon’s earnings call last month that the layoffs were a response to “cultural” issues within the company, in part because a long-term hiring push had “further spread the demographic” and slowed down decision-making.

The layoffs affected software engineers at various levels, but SDE II roles, or mid-level employees, were disproportionately affected, according to the WARN filing.

The AI ​​boom is making software development jobs harder to find as companies deploy coding assistants and so-called vibe coding platforms from vendors like Cursor, OpenAI, and Cognition. Amazon has released its own competing product called Kiro.

More than 500 product and program managers will be eliminated as part of the layoffs, representing more than 10% of the workforce, according to records from states where WARN notices have been issued. Senior manager and principal-level positions were also targeted for job cuts, according to the filing.

As part of a broader tightening, Amazon has sought in recent years to reduce investment in some of its more experimental or unprofitable initiatives. This will eliminate telehealth services, video calling devices for children, fitness wearables, and some brick-and-mortar retail chains.

Amazon’s video game division has become the company’s latest round of job cuts, according to a California State Police filing. Steve Boom, vice president of audio, Twitch and gaming, told staff in a memo seen by CNBC that there will be “significant role reductions” within the game studios and central publishing teams in San Diego and Irvine, California.

Game designers, artists and producers accounted for more than a quarter of Irvine’s total cuts, and about 11% of the staff laid off at Amazon’s San Diego office, according to the filing.

The company also told staff it would cease much of its big-budget or triple-A game development work, particularly massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, Boom wrote. Amazon has released MMOs like Crucible and New World. They were also developing an MMO based on The Lord of the Rings.

In addition to its gaming division, Amazon also made significant cuts to its visual search and shopping teams, according to multiple employee posts on LinkedIn. This division is responsible for products such as Amazon Lens and Lens Live, an AI shopping tool that allows users to search for products in real time via images stored on their camera or device. The company rolled out Lens Live in September.

The team was primarily based in Palo Alto, California, but Amazon’s WARN filing indicates that software engineers, applied scientists, and quality assurance engineers were significantly affected across its offices there.

Amazon’s online advertising business, one of its biggest profit centers, was similarly scaled back. More than 140 advertising sales and marketing jobs were cut across Amazon’s New York offices, accounting for about 20% of the roughly 760 job cuts, according to state documents seen by CNBC.

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