Amazon’s recent announcement to eliminate around 14,000 corporate jobs marks its most significant workforce reduction in 31 years, and the biggest impact appears to fall on its engineering teams.

State-level WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) documents filed in New York, California, New Jersey, and Washington reveal that nearly 40 per cent of the 4,700+ cuts reported in those states were engineering roles, Moneycontrol writes.

Among the hardest hit were mid-level Software Development Engineers (SDE II), a layer deeply involved in product execution rather than high-level strategy.

The job reductions come as Amazon intensifies its investment and hiring in generative AI, cloud computing, and core infrastructure.

According to company leadership, the layoffs are not about performance but rather a deliberate effort to trim bureaucracy, simplify structure, and “move faster.”

Some of the cuts are also linked to the scaling down of non-core businesses: Amazon’s gaming arm, including its Lord of the Rings-based MMO (Massively multiplayer online game), has seen major reductions, while product teams working on initiatives like visual search and AI-powered shopping have also been hit.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and senior HR executive Beth Galetti said the reorganisation reflects a broader “leaner but more ownership-driven” company model, even as it maintains that AI is a tool for accelerating innovation, not simply replacing human roles.

Across the tech sector, nearly 113,000 jobs have been cut at 231 companies this year, as per Layoffs.fyi.