Amazon rescinding the offer while I am on the notice period

[YuryVladkov]

A few days ago, just before the Christmas, Amazon HR called me to inform that my offer is rescinded. The start date was Jan 2, 2023. As a gift, they will pay me a months salary.

I already resigned from my current post after obtaining the work visa for the new location on November 30th. I asked their affirmation before resigning.

Right now, I cannot relocate and my current visa became void since I resigned. I also cancelled my rent agreement. In a month, I will be on streets, without a job and visa.

In every step I tried to behave ethically and high trust. Guess I did wrong. Are all places like this?

Ps: sorry, I forgot to add. the new location was Canada. My current location is in EU.

Ps2: some background about me:

Amazon offer was for Sde2. I have 5 yoe. I have worked in several projects spanning from embedded software for airplanes to scalable cloud based data heavy backend applications.

Java/C++98 were the primary stack.

I had turned down an offer from Meta to join Amazon. I think my system design and general ds&a ability is okay. I am a good team player and perform well in friendly environment.

[tyingq]

Rescinding an offer that's tied to a visa is just extra shitty, sorry this happened to you. Surely they know the consequences that you'll suffer. I wonder if the Amazon leadership chain that collectively decided to do this has any remorse.

Edit: Feels like something that governments should tie to individual company's ability to use the visa program. Rescind a visa-tied offer (for no-fault-of-applicant reason), and we yank your right to use the program.

[np-]

No, you are purely a number to them, it is very unlikely anyone cares or even is mildly interested in the full scope of the damage they’re causing. I have worked with companies like this, if you try to push them from the “guilt” angle they usually double down about how this is collectively the best solution (carefully omitting that what they mean is it’s the best solution for their personal ambitions and wallets)

[Kim_Bruning]

I would agree. I think the political reason this doesn't happen is because the victims aren't voters in the relevant area. Not even necessarily in the most cynical sense. How many people will have researched upfront who the relevant representatives are at their destination, let alone how to reach them?

I keep thinking one might want to have some sort of international organization where people in each country reciprocally lobby for better international workers rights for each other's citizens.

Maybe something like this already exists, but I haven't heard of anything like it?

[vikingerik]

On that last, beware the law of unintended consequence: that penalty would serve as a deterrent against making offers to visa users in the first place, if the company had no route out of it once offered.

It's the same idea as European worker protection employment laws compared to the US: they sound good, but the effect is that companies have to be slower to hire when firing is that much harder.

[mmanciop]

Remorse? Are you kidding? Some likely get a long-forgotten tingle out of it ;-)

[iLoveOncall]

So what's the better option? Laying off someone already employed instead?

It's not extra shitty, it's just as shitty as any other situation. It sucks for the person involved but the alternatives are not better.

At least someone that got their offer rescinded can sue for promissory estoppel.

[CommieBobDole]

I swear, if Amazon was kidnapping people off the street and grinding them up to use the slurry as machine coolant, there would be people in threads like this saying, "Well, they could use water, but it's 25% less efficient which would increase costs, and at their scale those costs would be larger than the value of the lives of the people they're grinding up, so I see where they're coming from."

[BXLE_1-1-BitIs1]

You need a wrongful dismissal lawyer in the Canadian province you would have been working in. Canada has had a number of successful "wrongful hiring" lawsuits where the prospective employer has had to pay up.

Likely you would win an amount equivalent to the severance you would be eligible for from your previous employer plus additional expenses for relocation.

A letter from a wrongful dismissal lawyer will likely open the window to a better deal without having to file a lawsuit as companies don't like to see their name dragged in the mud with this kind of lawsuit.

[benj111]

>Likely you would win an amount equivalent to the severance you would be eligible for from your previous employer plus additional expenses for relocation

I wouldn't be hopeful about this. Speaking from the UK, we have wrongful dismissal that's basically a breach of contract, so you're basically eligible for the notice period, which is 2 weeks, although I think it takes a week to kick in.

You could perhaps sue for other losses due to breach of contract but it wouldn't be wrongful dismissal and it would be a major departure from the British way of doing things.

However most British employment law protections stem from eu law. Wrongful dismissal is kind of a holdover at this point so it's possible Canadian law is now very different, despite being from the same root.

[BXLE_1-1-BitIs1]

Yuri, After reading about your visa situation, a wrongful dismissal lawyer can claim for the extra expenses because of your visa situation including returning to home country, temporary accommodation, possibly being forced off employment market for an extended time until your visa situation is sorted out, extra travel etc.

Wrongful dismissal law (precedents) requires you to make reasonable effort to mitigate damages;so keep up your job search.

Remember that once you have a new job offer, any delay in beginning employment while waiting for a new visa can be claimed against Amazon.

[ekanes]

> once you have a new job offer, any delay in beginning employment while waiting for a new visa can be claimed against Amazon

If this is the case, I wonder if it implies that you can pursue an equivalent job IN CANADA, with Amazon paying for anything lost in the process...

[patrec]

> As a gift, they will pay me a months salary.

Have you got a signed contract? In which case them paying you is not a "gift" but something you are most likely legally entitled to, and you should find out how much they are required to pay you first of all. You can probably get a decent idea by a bit of googling, and if it looks like you are entitled to a good bit more than the one month they offered you, you should seek out an employment lawyer asap. If the law is on your side and you are lawyered up, hopefully it won't be necessary to sue them.

> In every step I tried to behave ethically and high trust.

Never trust faceless magacorps, especially not ones with a long documented pattern of screwing over their employees (and everyone else) without a second thought and right when they are going through mass lay-offs. Working for bigtech can be a great idea compensation and career wise, but never lose sight of the fact that to them you are just a replaceable cog whatever the in-house brain-washing department will try to tell you. Also, try to understand how critical the team you are hired into is to the company's current revenue streams, especially if the economy looks like it does now.

I would also suggest putting some contact details in your HN profile, maybe someone will reach out who can help (either with advice or, if you are really lucky and happen to have the right skills and tell people here about them, potentially even a visa-sponsorship; one difficulty is that you are on a short time frame and typically only larger companies will offer visa sponsorships unless you have some particular key skills).

> Are all places like this?

No, but you should be prepared to get screwed over at startups or small to medium companies as well. For faceless megacorps reading up on (ex-)employee experiences on forums like HN and glassdoor etc. is a good idea. For small companies being a good judge of character and talking to the CEO or similar as part of the interview helps.

[chevman]

I know a few folks relatively high up in Amazon HR/TA/People Ops type roles and the scale at which they operate recruiting is nuts. Mainly driven by the insane need for people in the ops/fulfillment/delivery areas, but corp roles are also similar.

They typically make more offers than roles they have available, as they have fairly good analytics around what % of offers will not be filled post acceptance (ie someone simply never shows up for day 1 of work).

Now, fast forward to today, and as you've heard in the press, and from Amazon directly, they are slowing hiring and may even do cuts in the new year. I think what you're seeing is in some areas they may be over running offers, and need to pull back and kill some post acceptance to correct based on the new reality of hiring forecasts.

Still sucks and is a shitty situation.

[phpisthebest]

While I understand this mentally it is still unethical to offer multiple people the job where by they start taking life changing steps where the employer knows full well they have extended multiple offers simply because "maybe one of them will not show up"

I have experience a few times new employee's not showing up on day 1. I would NEVER even consider extended multiple offers to people just to ensure one of them shows up. That is more than just "shitty" as you say.

[billjings]

> I think what you're seeing is in some areas they may be over running offers, and need to pull back and kill some post acceptance to correct based on the new reality of hiring forecasts.

There are times when you read something that conveys real depth of knowledge, sharp execution, and competence, but a complete lack of consideration for whether the thing done was right to do in the first place.

It does suck and it is a shitty situation, and it is probably a good idea to keep that framing in mind, as there is no recourse against a company the size of Amazon behaving like this towards someone without much power and influence.

But let's not lose sight of the fact that this is was an unethical action to take. If your forecasts include some risk, and your potential hires are taking that risk on (as H1Bs, no less), don't lie to them and tell them it's safe to quit their previous job when it's not.

[benj111]

Well if I turn up for a flight that's full, I get compensated, it is currently illegal in my country to ring people up and not connect them with someone. If I sign a contract to buy something in the future, I am expected to buy that thing.

If Amazon are doing this, they should be paying the full cost of their error, which is more than a month's salary.

[canadianfella]

That’s terrible and it looks like you’re trying to justify this.

[mmoustafa]

Very sorry to hear. The good news is there’s plenty of options to secure your immigration status while figuring out next steps.

USCIS released (somewhat relaxed) guidance on the current environment for non-citizen workers. You can find a list here https://twitter.com/debarghya_das/status/1605392365325205506...

In summary, all the “gray zone” escape hatches like the 2 month grace period or the B-2 status change are considered “in the clear” per this guidance.

[arealaccount]

This happened to me a few years ago, although I did not have to worry about the visa part.

My previous job was more than happy to take me back. It felt gross, but nonetheless I went back. Turned out to be a good bet for them as I remembered and felt indebted to them.

It may work to try to contact your previous employer. In a purely rational context they should take you back and it’s a win for them.

[vertis]

Hi YuryVladkov, This really sucks. There is lots of advice but one piece of advice worth mentioning is that you can freelance (e.g. Estonian or other EU company) and then you can use visa free days and live like a digital nomad.

Depending on your origin country a lot of countries have visa free travel. In the EU you can stay indefinitely by going in and out of the schengen zone. Using Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia, Ireland and Cyprus as places to spend time. And then the rest of the 90 in 180 days inside Schengen.

This might not work for you if you don't have visa free travel, but it's worth mentioning anyway. In the mean time you can sort things out and apply for other jobs.

So long as you stay clear of the major world cities (e.g. Berlin, Munich, Paris) airbnb and equivalent can be quite affordable for monthly stays. For example Sofia is quite a nice city and has quite affordable accommodation and coworking.

I'm happy to answer more questions if you want. My contact details are on my profile (prefer telegram).

[jpiasetz]

I saw this on Reddit yesterday so hopefully you were the op there as well. The advice there was all talk to a lawyer which you should do.

Either: 1) they are incorrect following the law or 2) they are correctly following the law And nobody can tell with 100% certainty either without going to court because law isn’t deterministic.

If it is 1 Amazon could be either: a) incompetently not considering your situation individually and will roll over when it gets escalated b) maliciously offer low and intending to fight it

Both Canada and EU have strong labour laws so probably worth fighting it even if you lose the 1 month

[thatguymike]

Reach back out to Meta. They're not offended that you turned down their offer, they understand that situations change, and they very well might still want to hire you.

[YuryVladkov]

They laid off recently and I could not find any E4 job posting

[ta988]

Really sorry to hear that. This is a reminder that you should never work for Amazon if you need a visa. Sadly your story is not the first one I heard. The most recent, a friend of mine was promised they would support her visa application after one year working there (which is really simple and cheap for them) and now they say it is against their rules.

[CoastalCoder]

I'm curious if there will ever be an inflection point where Amazon's reputation is so bad that they just can't hire the workers they want, even with competitive total comp.

My intuition is that there will always be enough people who are too desperate, or uninformed, to steer clear. I hope I'm wrong.

[schmidp]

We are in the EU and are looking for Java/Kotlin Devs in case you want to send over your CV (openresearch.com).

[keneda7]

In my experience if the company is amazons size yes it is like that. Smaller family run companies treat their employees/prospective employees much better in my experience. It is not always the case but I from my direct experience it has been. I am so sorry this has happened to you.

[phpisthebest]

I somewhat agree, but I have had bad experiences at micro companies as well (companies under 75 employees)

My experience the sweet spot is privately held corporations above 200 employees below 1000-2000 employees. Privately held is a key part, all publicly traded companies suck IMO

[bentlegen]

176 points, 100 comments in 1 hour … downvoted by HN mods and off the front page immediately.

As a point of feedback, when mods get so obviously involved in suppressing content seemingly-valued by the community it would be nice to understand the motivation behind that.

[hodgesrm]

How do you know it's downvoted by HN mods?

[birdymcbird]

i can’t offer a solution to your problem but here is another point of view.

consider it a blessing for your long term mental health. companies like amazon will bring you to Canada or US on a work visa and literally pound you. the cut throat culture brings out most toxic behavior in individuals. your going to be in competition at amazon of people from different cultures. sounds great on paper but different cultures and backgrounds have taught people especially from developing world to naturally react and minimize their own risk exposure in a particular way. endless political battles at middle management levels and teammates throwing each other under bus or refusing to cooperate in case the “other” person gets credit.

moving to a country on a work visa sponsored by amazon is not a good idea.

[jimlongton]

Is your current post already filled? I'm in the EU and filling positions left by people resigning has taken months. Talk to your old manager and HR. They might be more desperate than they appear.

[TedDoesntTalk]

Staying at a job that you resigned from is not a good idea, unless it’s very short term. For many reasons.

[skullone]

Ah man. I'm sorry. But, you made it to Amazon, you will be wanted for another opportunity real quick I bet!

[rat9988]

Not in the current market no.

[obynio]

Happened to me as well, I got a visa and an offer to work in Japan. I resigned from my current company, send the leave notice for my apartment, started packing and was supposed to fly there a month later. Omicron appeared a few weeks later, Japan sealed their borders, canceled all pending visa. No exception. But Japanese nationals were still allowed to travel freely anywhere and get working visa for Europe (of course).

Luckily my previous job accepted to cancel the resignation and I managed to keep my apartment since I had a very good relation with my landlord. But I still hold a nasty grunge to the Japanese government for that dick move.

When I finally made it 18 months later, I got randomly interviewed at the airport and talked about this covid management shit show, the lack of reciprocity between JP and EU, their government's inability to take any sensible action in a whole year... Even the interviewer was embarrassed. Needless to say, the interview was never broadcasted.

Don't get me wrong, the Japanese are wonderful people and there is a lot to love about them, their culture and their language. But they're governed by (very) old and incompetent politicians that rules the country like we're in 1980 and never cease to amaze me by their inaction and lack of innovation.

[abc_lisper]

I’m very sorry about this. You should look for another job. But make stink about this - write a letter to local congressman, senators and newspapers. It’s ok to hire and fire at will, but it should be not ok for Amazon to do this. A months pay is a spit in the face- they could have let you known upfront; it’s not like recession happened last night. You shouldn’t suffer for their mistake.

[CoastalCoder]

I think U.S. expats (still citizens but living abroad) have largely found that their U.S. representatives aren't interested in their problems.

I've heard this in relation to banking (FATCA), and perhaps also regarding non-reciprocity of driving licenses.

So I'm guessing they'd be even less interested in the plight of a non-voter.

[danaris]

> It’s ok to hire and fire at will, but it should be not ok for Amazon to do this.

I mean, this seems to be self-contradictory.

"We don't want to have rules around hiring and firing! We just want companies to be good!"

If there are no rules against particular abuses of labor, large, unethical companies will commit those abuses, especially if it makes things more convenient for them or someone can argue that it saves 0.03¢.

It should not be considered to be OK to hire and fire at will.