Amazon recruiters are inviting some of the 30,000 workers the company has cut over the past year to apply for AI and cloud roles, in what an AWS recruiter called 'Swami's Boomerang Reengagement Initiative.' The initiative, named after AWS Vice President Swami Sivasubramanian, who leads Amazon's AI agent organization, shows the company is still hiring in the parts of its business where demand keeps rising, even as it keeps trimming the rest.
- Layoffs since October 2025
- More than 30,000 jobs across multiple rounds at Amazon
- Outreach program
- Swami's Boomerang Reengagement Initiative, named for AWS VP Swami Sivasubramanian
- Targeted roles
- AI agent organization, AWS Finance, cloud computing and AI hires
- US boomerang share, March 2025
- 35% of new hires overall, up from 31% a year earlier
- Tech sector boomerang share
- Nearly two-thirds of new hires, according to ADP payroll data
The pitch arrives with a name attached
In one outreach last month, recruiters for Amazon's AI agent organization invited former employees in AI and machine learning to discuss new roles. The note, sent under a subject line that included the phrase 'Swami's Boomerang Reengagement Initiative,' made the changed landscape explicit. "A lot has changed since you were here, and there's some really compelling work happening across AI/ML right now," one recruiter email read, according to recruiter emails reviewed by Business Insider.
The initiative carries the name of AWS Vice President Swami Sivasubramanian, who runs the AWS unit focused on AI agents. The effort is not limited to AI. An AWS Finance recruiter separately reached out to a former employee who left in good standing, offering a shortened interview path to an offer and asking whether Amazon's return-to-office policy had been a reason for their departure. "Please know that I'm sensitive to these concerns," the recruiter wrote, treating location preferences as a real recruitment lever rather than a fixed rule.
30,000 cuts on one side, AI hires on the other
Amazon has cut more than 30,000 jobs in multiple rounds of layoffs over the past year, among the largest workforce reductions in the company's history. In parallel, the company has said it is still hiring aggressively in cloud computing and AI, where it competes directly with Google, OpenAI and Anthropic for a small bench of senior engineers. The two streams have produced a stream of contradictory headlines about the same company.
Haley Silva, an Amazon spokesperson, told Business Insider that the contradiction is not what it looks like. "Rehiring former employees is a normal, longstanding part of how we recruit, and our rehire and interview practices are consistent across the company," Silva said. She added that eligible former workers can include people Amazon laid off, but said the company is recruiting for open roles and is not specifically targeting employees who left because of return-to-office.
Return-to-office sits behind the outreach
Amazon's strict in-office mandate has been a recurring talent headache for recruiters trying to land senior AI engineers. Business Insider reported in 2025 that the company's five-day-a-week requirement and its office hub rules were costing it top candidates, with some accepting lower-paying jobs elsewhere for more flexibility. The Finance recruiter's note, asking specifically whether return-to-office had driven a former employee away, suggests Amazon has internalized that feedback.
The boomerang channel also shortens the standard interview loop, according to the emails reviewed by Business Insider. That speed matters when competing for AI researchers who regularly field offers from rival labs and can sign within weeks.
Boomerang hiring now drives most tech hires
The Amazon outreach sits inside a broader labor market shift. Returning employees made up 35% of US new hires in March 2025, up from 31% a year earlier, according to ADP payroll data cited by Business Insider. In the technology sector, returning hires accounted for nearly two-thirds of new hires, a sign that in a market where outside candidates are scarce, employers are leaning hard on familiar names.
ADP said returning employees typically bring hard-to-find skills and ramp up faster than outside hires. For Amazon, the calculus is now visible in the inbox of an engineer who lost a corporate job two quarters ago and, this autumn, received an invite to come back to the AI side of the company.
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