Amazon's Significant Changes in Engineering and Gaming Face Major Challenges

Amazon announced one of the largest staff reductions in its history in October 2025, cutting more than 14,000 corporate jobs across nearly all its business units, including cloud services, devices, retail, advertising, and groceries.

State WARN filings (New York, California, New Jersey, Washington) detailing over 4,700 layoffs showed that nearly 40% of the cuts were engineering positions.

The reductions disproportionately affected SDE II (mid-level Software Development Engineers).

Over 500 Product Managers and Program Managers were also cut in the states that filed notices, accounting for over 10% of the recorded job losses. Senior and principal-level roles were included as well.

Amazon's gaming division saw significant role reductions, particularly in its San Diego and Irvine studios and central publishing. Cuts in Irvine heavily impacted game designers, artists, and producers (over 25% of cuts there).

The Visual Search and Shopping teams (e.g., the Palo Alto unit for Amazon Lens and Lens Live) saw layoffs affecting software engineers, applied scientists, and QA specialists.

Over 140 advertising sales and marketing roles were cut in New York as part of a broader downsizing of the online advertising business.

CEO Andy Jassy's effort to overhaul internal culture is driving the cuts. Amazon's official statement is that the layoffs were aimed at "reducing layers and speeding up decisions" to create a more "leanly" organized company with "fewer layers and more ownership."

While the company claims AI wasn't the main driver, the restructuring aligns with a major strategic shift, HR chief Beth Galetti described the current generation of AI as the "most transformative technology since the Internet," enabling faster innovation.

Jassy previously indicated that AI tools would boost efficiency, likely leading to a decline in white-collar roles as a result.