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In October, James Hwang was fired from his IT position at Amazon.
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He said he was having trouble finding a new job and was increasingly concerned about his financial situation.
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His advice to recently laid-off Amazon employees is to rely on your connections and apply steadily.
The now-famous article was based on a conversation with James Hwang, a 28-year-old job seeker living in southern Michigan. He previously worked at Amazon as an IT support engineer until he was laid off last October. The following content has been edited for length and clarity.
One morning in October, I received an automated text message from Amazon asking me to check my personal email before work. I saw an email from HR telling me I was fired.
I was very surprised because I believed I was a high performer who had contributed a lot to the organization in four years. IT support employees like myself were generally unaffected by previous layoffs, and I felt like we were already short-staffed.
Since I was the breadwinner of my family, I immediately started looking for a job, focusing on cloud support and IT systems engineering positions. The job market is very tough and I haven’t found a new job yet.
While my last paycheck from Amazon this month helped ease the transition, the slow progress of my job search has made me increasingly worried about my finances.
My wife and I have a young son and a mortgage. Our priorities right now are meeting essentials and staying on top of credit card payments. We have begun budgeting for a potentially longer spell of unemployment and reducing spending on dining out and other non-essentials.
Business Insider speaks with employees who have found themselves at a crossroads at their companies—whether due to layoffs, resignations, job searches or changes in workplace expectations.
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I think it’s harder to advance at Amazon as a remote employee
Getting laid off made me reflect on my experience at Amazon.
I was born and raised in Michigan, but as of 2021, I live in Seoul, South Korea and work at a small tech company. I thought it would be better for my career to join a larger company, so I took an IT support engineering position at Amazon’s Seoul office.
After about three years, it seemed like the best way to continue progress was to move back to the United States. In 2024, I have a similar role on a fully remote team that allows me to return home to Michigan.
I have team members spread across the globe to ensure around-the-clock support, but that setup doesn’t mesh well with Amazon’s evolving return-to-the-office policy, which a year ago became a five-day work week requirement for many employees. My team is not located near either location and is about an hour’s drive from my nearest office.
My understanding is that even after the latest RTO directive came into effect, some teams were still allowed to remain remote – and their VPs had some influence over this decision. By the middle of last year, however, there seemed to be more top-down pressure to return to the office—pressure that not even vice presidents could resist.
While I’ve never been required to work in an office, I believe being a remote employee may make me more vulnerable to layoffs—I’ve heard that quite a few of my remote colleagues abroad and in the United States have been affected. Amazon says the layoffs are driven by culture, and I think prioritizing current employees may be part of that.
Regardless, I’m not sure I have many opportunities for advancement as a remote employee. I was interested in an engineering position with another team, but was told I needed to move to Seattle. Since my wife and I bought a home last year and have deep family roots in Michigan, we have been reluctant to relocate.
The job market is like a brick wall
My job search has been really challenging so far. I typically spend about five hours a day searching for work during the week and a little less on the weekends.
My goal is to find an engineering position like the one I had at Amazon that was hard to find without moving. I’ve been leveraging my network as much as possible to get referrals while also cold-bloodedly applying for jobs.
I’ve always targeted ranged characters. There are some tech opportunities in Michigan with the big car companies, but they usually require at least a hybrid schedule and the pay is usually lower than what I made at Amazon. I would be willing to accept an office position as long as it met my salary expectations, which would be around a six-figure base salary. I live about 40 minutes from Detroit and would consider a position there if the right opportunity presented itself.
I received a five-day job offer from a company, but I turned it down. The commute is an hour each way, and the position comes with a fairly strict non-compete agreement that may limit my ability to change jobs.
Getting an interview is difficult. Applicant tracking systems powered by artificial intelligence are extremely difficult to navigate. While my search has been frustrating, I know I can’t slow down, especially as more laid-off workers flood the market and competition intensifies.
My advice to people who have been fired
I am stressed out about finding a job and recently filed for unemployment benefits. Since starting my job search in October, I’ve applied to over 200 positions and had about five interviews. But I haven’t given up yet.
My best advice to people who have been laid off (including those recently laid off by Amazon) is to rely on your connections. In today’s market, it’s hard not to have recommendations. While it’s important to be consistent when searching for a job, I also recommend taking some time to rest—applying steadily rather than going all in.
This is a marathon, not a sprint.
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