I remember reading a blog post many years ago that stuck with me, I don't remember the title of the post or who wrote it but it was essentially along the lines of "beware when companies start to take away the free snacks". It made a pretty convincing argument about how even seemingly minor changes like that start to signal a greater shift in the companies attitude toward how they want to treat and be perceived by their staff.

I think a lot of Amazonians, even those who choose to stay, will look back on this as their "no more free snacks" moment (I also think there are probably many Amazonians who are already past that point, but that is a different topic).

That is the one, thank you!

I've heard a similar story from someone who was at HP when the donut carts ended, it signaled a significant culture change.

> I remember reading a blog post many years ago that stuck with me, I don't remember the title of the post or who wrote it but it was essentially along the lines of "beware when companies start to take away the free snacks".

Most don't even have them... but ok

It’s a fairly calculated move, as they know market for engineers isn’t in the best shape, so a significant chunk will keep working with no complaints. They also ramped up hiring heavily, if the number of messages I get from Amazon’s recruiters is an indicator.

Amazon is mostly known for burning out their engineers, right? It is a shame if they are doing these back door layoffs because it means more people will have to get churned through. Burning out can have some pretty negative long term effects, hopefully not too much human potential is sacrifices to the altar of slightly faster shipping.

Their recruiters basically never stopped sending out messages even during the mass layoffs of the past few years, from my experience

> It’s a fairly calculated move, as they know market for engineers isn’t in the best shape, so a significant chunk will keep working with no complaints.

Of course, that's the sort of thing that tends to be true right up until it abruptly isn't.