Author: Patrick Newman (patorick002@gmail.com)
Date: 2023-12-01

I joined Amazon as an SDM in July of 2022. I was hired to work from an office location in Palo Alto, California, but my primary team was in Seattle. This wasn't a problem, my team was relatively distributed, and the executive guidance at the time was that organizations could make their own decisions about in-office work. The early part of my tenure was mutually positive, and I was asked to take on additional responsibilities about six months after joining.

By August 2023, company policies had changed, I was given an ultimatum to relocate to one of my organization's hubs (Seattle or NYC), or find a new role. Amazon gave me a 30 day deadline to make a decision. If I chose relocation, I would be offered relocation assistance and given six months to complete the move. If I chose not to relocate, I would have a deadline to find a new role, initially 60 days but extendable to 90 days. If I chose not to relocate, and leave the company, this would be treated as a voluntary resignation and not a layoff or termination. None of this was offered to me in writing.

Relocating under these terms was not an option for me due to family considerations, so the only path forward was to find a new role. I've made a few notes on how I handled this experience in the hopes it might help others. In speaking with people facing similar mandates, I'm seeing that there is a lot of variance in the situations people are in. The main variables seem to be whether a fixed deadline has been given or not, whether the current work location is remote or in an office, whether the person affected was hired into a remote role, and how willing the person is to relocate. Everyone's circumstances will be unique, so what I have here is presented as an example rather than advice.

Okay, here we go.

0. I accepted that I cannot control Amazon's policy decision, I can only control how I respond to it.

I used to keep a picture of Miles Davis at my desk, with his famous quote: "If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad." I had put my job with Amazon before my health, family, and even sleep at times prior to getting this mandate. So in a sense, the mandate was clarifying in that I knew I had to focus on taking care of myself and determining my next steps. I also decided that I would continue to do my best to support the people around me at work, despite the conditions placed on my employment.

1. I took the full month to finalize on a response to the initial relocation mandate.

I was offered a month to decide, so I took a month to decide. To be fair, I did consider relocating, to some degree, even though it was far-fetched and I ultimately couldn't find a way to make it work. Concurrently, I also began looking for other options as I knew the clock was already ticking.

2. I communicated that I was unable to accomodate a relocation request.

I was a firm 'no' on relocation, so that was the decision I communicated on my deadline day. My manager entered it into some sort of tracking system that is not available to me. If I had been on the fence about relocating, or if it was even a possibility, I might have communicated a 'yes' decision, or asked for more time. I was sure of my decision and didn't want to play games to try to get more time, so giving a clear 'no' was the only real option.

3a. I pursued internal opportunities.

When I got my mandate, there were very few SDM openings in my area listed on the internal jobs website; only two if I remember correctly. So rather than wait for jobs to be posted, I networked around with people who I knew had teams and staff in the SF Bay Area. My idea was to get a jump on positions that planned, but not quite open yet. I got a lot of "sorry, no" responses, but a lot of people were willing to have a conversation. After a while, I asked some of my most trusted colleagues to reach out to others and recommend me, which they did and I'm grateful for. This also generated some conversations.

Ultimately I didn't find an internal role to transfer into within the time I had available, but I think it would have eventually worked. I heard from multiple hiring managers that they had a large volume of internal candidates, which made things harder. Also, in the Bay Area, many of the roles that make it to the job listings website require specific expertise in machine learning, which I don't particularly have. So a big learning here is that having specialized expertise in a key area is a big plus at Amazon.

3b. I pursued external opportunities.

In contrast to Amazon, I found that I got a lot of interest from external companies. Normally I'm pretty reserved about networking when I'm doing a job search, but this time I was quite aggressive in reaching out my network for help. I am grateful to say that I found many people willing to support me, and I was able to speak with several companies and line up multiple interviews within the first month of my search. I took PTO for the time I needed to interview and tried to respect the balance of doing my work and finding a job as much as possible, though my priority was clearly on finding a job.

The tech job market is not like it was for the last few years. There are still companies hiring, but there are lot more candidates, and companies are behaving in a more selective and risk averse way. The main impact to me was that companies with hiring committees were slower to make decisions, and compensation is somewhat less aggressive than it had been during the covid boom.

4. I was transparent with the people around me.
I was routinely asked by colleagues if I was affected by a relocation mandate. In each case I answered truthfully with the facts. I also got some questions about where I was looking for work. Initially I declined to answer questions about this, but I opened up over time, as it become more and more clear that I was getting better traction outside Amazon.

5. I managed myself differently at work.
I had to acknowledge that one way or another, I would be leaving my team at some point before the end of the year. But I still had a job to do, which I continued to the best of my ability when I wasn't interviewing. I worked long hours before getting the mandate, typically starting my day at 6:00 am, and ending around 6:00 pm, but I wound this down and switched to more typical hours within in a few weeks of getting the mandate. It became more important to be well-rested and focused, not only for interviews but just because it's better anyway. 

At work, I turned my attention more to the people around me than our project work. I figure the projects I work on will continue after I'm gone, under new ownership, but I didn't want whatever I've learned to walk out the door with me. I focused on writing things down, answering questions, giving feedback and so on. Things only a human with human engagement can achieve. 

6. I made myself available to others affected.
This has been, in some ways, a lonely experience, but I don't think it has to be that way out of necessity. I've spoken with some others in the same boat, hopefully to provide some reassurance and support, even if there is a limit to what any one person can do.

While I haven't clearly stated it in this document, I have made a decision about my next steps. I didn't focus on that, because that's not the important part.

If you're reading this and you're affected by this policy change, I'm with you. We have pretty good jobs in tech, but it's always a stressful situation to have your employment put in question, particularly in Q4 in a changing job economy. My hope is that reading this helps you define your own sense of direction in dealing with a challenging situation.