I got laid off from Amazon after 11 years. My high school daughter taught me the biggest lesson on how to move forward.

• Hemant Virmani was laid off from Amazon during the October 2025 round of layoffs.
• He's using this time to learn new AI skills while applying to engineering roles — and exercising.
• His teenage daughter has inspired him to stay positive, keep his cool, and focus on the future.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Hemant Virmani, a 47-year-old tech professional based in Washington. It's been edited for length and clarity.

Amazon was part of my daily life for 11.5 years, and suddenly it was gone.

There's no right way or easy way to do layoffs. I watched my team members get laid off in 2023, and I know how difficult it is. Still, when I received an email in the middle of the night in October of 2025 saying I'd been laid off from my senior software development manager position, I was shocked.

Watching my teenage daughter navigate her own difficult situation taught me the biggest lesson in how to move forward well. Now I'm applying to jobs and working on upskilling in AI so I can be proactive, not reactive, to the tech industry.

Only time will tell if this layoff is a blessing in disguise, but for now it has led to a refreshing change.

I had two amazing meetings with senior leadership after the layoff

I loved my time at Amazon, and I really feel as though it's a place for exceptional people. The number of quality brains in the office, throwing around ideas and solving a custom problem, was amazing.

The morning after my layoff, I had a mandated 30-minute meeting with my manager, and it actually went very well. We talked about the layoff, and he offered me support. He delivered it all to me in a very positive, human way, and it was really affirming.

An old manager also reached out to meet me at a local coffee shop the next day to spend time together and check in on my state of mind. I think he wanted to go about the layoffs right, which isn't easy to do.

My daughter taught me to take the layoff positively

I felt attached to the layoff for the first few days; however, I knew there was no way to control what happened — I could only control how I reacted to it.

My daughter is a senior in high school, and she had an adverse situation happen to her last year that required recovery. How she reacted in that difficult time inspired me. Her mental model was: "Challenges don't have to keep me from showing up for myself or for others." Her positive attitude was inspiration for me to do the same.

I kind of learned from her that I had to take this layoff with positivity, keep my cool, and focus on what was next.

It's refreshing to think of what's next after my layoff

A couple of weeks later, I lost my father and spent the next month in India supporting my family. I took about a month to settle my mind, reflect on what I wanted next for my career, and help my daughter finish her college essays.

It's been a very refreshing change to think about what I want next in my engineering career. I'm less focused on the size or name of the next company I work for, and more on what I'd be doing there. I'm looking forward to hopefully heading the engineering for something that has a great impact on customers. Right now, I don't think that can be done without AI, so I'm working on upskilling.

I'm learning new AI skills I didn't have time to harness at Amazon

I want to be proactive, not reactive, about the AI skills I'll need in the future. My team at Amazon used some AI tools, so I'm familiar with some, but I was only able to spend a fraction of my workday using them. Now, I'm building those skills myself.

I started working on a hobby AI project a couple of weeks ago, to go hands-on with AI and be more grounded in the reality of what the AI landscape is like right now. It's been different, and a refreshing change, to build something myself rather than to study it, read about it, or work on a team developing it.

I'm applying to jobs and focusing on my health

When I had a job, it was easy for my first priority to be work. Now I'm making sure that my top priority is my health. I've been going to the gym four or five days a week, and I'm refining a health plan to follow even after I start working again.

Once I'm done at the gym, my time is a 50/50 split between learning AI and applying to jobs or networking. I'm applying for Head of Engineering roles where I'd own significant impactful initiative(s), averaging 2-3 applications every week.

I made a post on LinkedIn about my layoff, and I received so many supportive comments, texts, and calls from people — some I hadn't talked to in decades. Someone from college whom I hadn't talked to in over 25 years reached out, and it was so nice. It felt like we never disconnected. I've also had multiple job leads come from my post which I'm following up on.

The layoff may be a blessing in disguise

As of now, I have some worries about when I'll find my next job, but this time has given me the ability to work on things I wasn't able to before. I'm making sure I spend this time with a lot of positivity, not letting negative thoughts come around.

My advice to anyone undergoing layoffs is to realize that layoffs are not about you. It's about an environment that is driving layoffs. Secondly, now that this has happened, you can't go back in the past and change it. Look forward to what you can do next. How you react is very important.

Do you have a story to share about being laid off from Amazon? If so, please reach out to the reporter at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com.