AWS Layoffs Hit the Community Where It Hurts
Yesterday’s large layoffs at AWS hit me harder than I expected. Not because of the numbers on a spreadsheet or the stock price implications, but because many of the people impacted are friends. People I have worked with, learned from, and built things alongside. People without whom I would not be where I am today. When you strip away the corporate language of “organizational restructuring,” what remains is a trail of real human consequences.
What makes this particularly painful is that the people let go were not just employees filling seats. Many of them were genuine community heroes – developer advocates, solutions architects, community builders who spent years making AWS approachable and human. They ran meetups, answered questions at 11 PM, wrote blog posts nobody asked them to write, and flew across countries to help developers solve problems. These are the people who turned a cloud platform into a community. Their impact cannot be measured in quarterly business reviews, and that is probably why they are the first to go when someone in a boardroom decides to “optimize.”
One thing that has been especially striking to me is how different the mechanics of employment are between countries. In the US, you can be walked out of the building the same day with a cardboard box. In many European countries, there are notice periods, consultation requirements, and social safety nets that at least cushion the blow. Neither system is perfect. The American model is brutal in its speed. The European model can drag out the uncertainty. But watching friends in different countries go through the same layoff with wildly different practical outcomes is a stark reminder that where you happen to work from matters enormously.
The community now faces a real challenge. These people built networks, knowledge bases, and relationships that took years to develop. That institutional knowledge and community capital does not transfer to whoever remains. It simply evaporates. And for the people affected, the job market for highly specialized cloud community roles is not exactly overflowing with opportunities. The roles that made these people exceptional – hybrid technical-community positions – are the first ones companies cut and the last ones they recreate.
If you are reading this and you know someone affected, reach out. Not with a generic “let me know if I can help” LinkedIn comment, but with actual introductions, actual referrals, actual job leads. I have already started connecting people in my network and I will continue doing so. These are some of the most talented, passionate people in the cloud ecosystem. They deserve better than a calendar invite titled “Important Update” on a random Tuesday morning. If there is anything I can do to help anyone find their next opportunity, I am committed to doing exactly that.
