Dear Amazon Engineering Recruiters

contents/articles/2021-10-05-dear-amazon.md

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+date: 2021-10-06T17:00:00Z
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+
+# Dear Amazon Engineering Recruiters
+
+tl;dr: No.
+
+Look, I hate that I've gotten so many emails from Amazon engineering recruiters
+that I even feel like this needs to be said, but I don't want to spend so much
+as half a brain processing cycle on this again, and am tired of copy-and-pasting
+the same response over and over, so I'll make it quick.
+
+There are two reasons why my answer is no. The first is that I am very happy
+with where I am now, and I have neither any intention to nor interest in any
+changes any time even remotely soon. I've found a role as a senior SRE that has
+been immensely fulfilling[^1], and at a company and with people that put their
+money where their mouth is when it comes to being inclusive, fair, ethical, and
+equitable, and there is no other place I would rather be for the forseeable
+future.
+
+The second is that I will never have any interest in working for Amazon, as a
+result of their unethical treatment of their supply chain workforce and refusing
+to take necessary measures to prevent outbreaks of COVID-19 at their warehouses,
+and their retaliatory firing of employees[^2] that attempted to organize and
+advocate on behalf of improving their own coworkers' working conditions. The
+National Labor Relations Board [substantiated][] that at least two of these
+firings were retaliatory and illegal and filed a case on those workers' behalf,
+and Amazon was forced to agree to a [humiliating][] out-of-court settlement —
+requiring them to pay back wages and "post a notice to all of its tech and
+warehouse workers nationwide that Amazon can’t fire workers for organizing and
+[exercising their rights][]" — rather than face public excoriation in the
+hearings process.
+
+Tim Bray [resigned in protest][] as VP at AWS over the firings, and has [openly
+celebrated][] the settlement and called for further judgements against Amazon
+for the other employees whose firings are suspected of being related to their
+involvement in employee activism. Consider every single word of his statements
+and reasoning for leaving as my own for refusing to even consider working for
+them:
+
+> Firing whistleblowers isn’t just a side-effect of macroeconomic forces, nor is
+> it intrinsic to the function of free markets. It’s evidence of a vein of
+> toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor
+> drink that poison.
+
+If you're an Amazon recruiter that comes across my website, or my profiles on
+GitHub or LinkedIn, I hope you find this post and save yourself the time and
+energy.
+
+[^1]:
+ It turns out that spending so much time on the infrastructure for my own
+ projects, that I hardly ever wrote any actual code for my own projects, has
+ its benefits after all.
+
+[^2]: Incidentally, everyone fired was a woman and/or a person of color.
+
+[substantiated]: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/05/labor-board-reportedly-finds-amazon-illegally-fired-activist-workers.html
+[humiliating]: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/29/amazon-settles-with-employees-who-said-they-were-fired-over-activism.html
+[exercising their rights]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15kVQrpyqH_sbtOXvQ38DeXZx7lwLAn3GVsZUDb6i0e8
+[resigned in protest]: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/04/29/Leaving-Amazon
+[openly celebrated]: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2021/10/02/Amazon-Catharsis