💸Amazon Memo Warns Engineers Against Tokenmaxxing as 250 Jobs Are Cut

Your AI usage stats might be getting you nowhere at Amazon

Amazon just told its engineers to stop burning tokens for the sake of it. A memo from Terkowitz, a VP and Distinguished Engineer on Amazon's Independent Contributor track, says AI usage has to tie to customer outcomes and engineering judgment. Spending more tokens doesn't count as progress. If you're on an AI-heavy team, this matters. The memo says an engineer whose work doesn't benefit from current AI tooling has a finding, not a failing. But it also warns that non-adopters are falling behind, so you can't just opt out and call it judgment. Amazon also shut down KiroRank, an internal leaderboard that rewarded people for pointless AI task churn. Meta ran a similar experiment with Claudenomics. The numbers behind the memo are where it gets uncomfortable. Amazon admits its input metrics are deeply flawed but still wants them used, carefully. The company also reportedly cut another 250 jobs this week. The real tension is that AWS bills customers by the token, so consumption is the revenue plan outside the building while frugality is the rule inside it.