Twitch employees hit hard by Amazon layoffs, ‘Built the entire fraud program, never got recognition’

Twitch employees are speaking out after the Amazon layoffs hit Amazon Games and Twitch, with one of them saying he was laid off simply “by an email.”

Twitch employees are speaking out after the Amazon layoffs hit Amazon Games and Twitch. Amazon is reportedly laying off over 14,000 corporate employees.

Twitch employees hit hard by Amazon layoffs (Unsplash - representational image))

Twitch is owned by Amazon. The company acquired the live-streaming platform in August 2014 for $970 million. Twitch operates as a subsidiary of Amazon.

An X user named Tarfu was laid off by Twitch, where he worked for 11 years. In a series of social media posts, Tarfu claimed that he was unfairly treated by the company and that being laid off is going to put a strain on him, saying he met with an accident just a month ago and is soon getting married.

‘I never got recognition for the work I did’

“I started off working in trust & safety, then moved to customer expereince,” wrote Tarfu. “I was the person who built the entire fraud program at Twitch. One of the reasons I never told people what I did for work. I was the one keeping bad actors off Twitch who steal and and abuse revenue on the platform. I guess I did my job too well since they let me go. But do I have some great stories of being there over a decade.”

Tarfu added, “Horrible timing since my motorcycle accident was a month ago, I am getting married in less than a month. This has definitely been a bad year.”

In two subsequent posts, Tarfu claimed that the weight of his work never got the recognition needed, and that he was simply laid off by an email. “Maybe I can start streaming again, I have been at Twitch partner for 14 years. I was one of the people who came from the Twitch community thinking I would make a better place. I believe I helped creators earn "real" revenue while keeping bots off the platform. A lot of people don't realize what I actually did and how I protected the community and users when it comes to fraud,” one of Tarfu’s posts reads.

In another post, Tarfu wrote, “I am still not sure what I think about all of this. 11+ years working at a company, I never got recognition for the work I did, I had death threats and my PII leaked. The way they laid me off was by an email, didn't even have the common courtsey to setup a call.”

Other Twitch employees have also taken to social media to seek new jobs after being laid off. “After 9 incredible years, my time at @Twitch has come to an end as part of today’s Amazon layoffs,” wrote X user JDubb. “It’s been the best job I’ve ever had. I’ve grown so much, met amazing creators and coworkers, and lived for TwitchCon every year. My resume is updated and I’m open to new roles.”

Another Twitch employee, who has not been laid off, called for people to be kind to those who were affected. “4th layoffs at Twitch, I am not affected but I want to plead for people to show kindness to those that are thrown into this volatile job market,” the employee wrote on X. “The social media landscape paints a bad picture of all the hard work people do to try and maintain the balance for the Twitch you love”.

Layoffs to affect video games and cloud-computing area

A Bloomberg report said that the Amazon layoffs will affect both video games and the cloud-computing area of the company. The report added that the cuts “would largely fall on its offices in Irvine and San Diego, as well as its central publishing division.”

“While we’re proud of our successes in first-party AAA game development and publishing, we have made the difficult decision to halt a significant amount of our first-party AAA game development work – specifically around MMOs – within Amazon Game Studios, including making significant role reductions in our studios in Irvine and San Diego, as well as our central publishing team,” read an email sent by vice president of audio, Twitch, and games Steve Boom to employees.