After 4 1/2 years this week is my last at Amazon.
I first want to thank my teammates & all the people with whom I worked during this time. These are folks with whom I enjoyed working greatly. We navigated some crazy circumstances together –like that time our L6+L7+L8 managers all left within a month!– Some people moved on, and then some got promoted – thank you all for letting me be a part of your journeys. All-n-all, we had a lot of fun.
I also want to thank the company for the opportunity. I joined this company as an engineer and am leaving as a different one. I learned a great deal of things.
I internalized Amazon's leadership principles, outstandingly 4: Ownership, Be right, a lot, Invent & simplify, & Frugality.
I learned that ownership is what makes you thrive at any given level, and that to own is to care for things as if they were your own – being passionate, developing opinions, and taking pride in your craft – you're, at the end of the day, in the driver seat. As an L4 engineer, you own features, as an L5, services, and as an L6, architectures, but at every step of the way you own your team's culture & kaizen.
I learned to be right, a lot. I learned that to be right a lot doesn't mean to be right from the get-go, but to eventually be right. I understood that you must seek to disproof your own beliefs: Why will this not work? Why should this person not be promoted? What are the dogs not barking?
I learned that simplifying is as important as inventing, and that paying back tech debt is indeed simplifying.
I learned that being frugal is a matter not of minimizing the inputs but of getting the max value out of the resources you've at hand – and time and energy are indeed finite resources. What should you be working on that maximizes the value you're adding???
I also learned that to get promoted you have to operate at the next level, and that doing exactly what your manager tells you to won't get you anywhere. I learned that most up-leveling opportunities have to be carved out, and that they're rarely given to you in a silver platter –though sometimes they are!– I learned that it is you that has to navigate the process, and that even though a stakeholder, it's not your manager's responsibility to get you promoted – although a good manager will take this as his/her/their goal.
Lastly, I learned how to write! (Although I still have my doubts on this!)
When I joined Amazon I set out to achieve 2 goals: Stick around in a company long enough to actually produce work that moved the needle, and to get promoted. Previously, I had switched companies quite often; this time around, I stayed put – and thus I designed & launched services that are nowadays used by 15M customers! How crazy is that?! I also wanted to get promoted, if only to prove to myself that I could do it; I wanted to get to the next level not by moving but by sticking around.
Hindsight being 20/20, I guess that I wouldn't have transferred out of Amazon Go. Go was an org with a high technical bar and experiencing great growth, & I could have grown with it. I transferred because I got frustrated for having been assigned a project that I thought would have low impact – how was I to get promoted with such a low impact project? I now realize that by kicking ass on that project and having a little more patience I could have achieved my goals earlier. At some point I even discussed this with my former manager, and he agreed – heh, it's all water under the bridge now. I would also have owned my promo process earlier. I ranted and bickered for a long while before realizing that it was me and not my manager who should be in the driver seat – though it did take a pretty harsh conversation with a Principal Engineer –in which he asked me, pretty flustered, why was I losing his time?!– to realize it. Don't get me wrong – Brand Follow was fantastic; serendipity put me in the driver seat of a large project and that eventually got me promoted, but I recon that luck played a big part.
I'm leaving because when I first joined Amazon, I wanted to learn what is it that makes such a large engineering organization tick. Although I still don't know (ha!), I have an inkling of an idea – and now I want to disproof my own beliefs :) I also want to change domains & tech stacks, and to keep learning! I want to feel excited & energized, and I think I'm just about to get that – switching is going to be healthy, both professionally and personally, and I look very much forward to it.
Lastly, what's next? I'll take a week off & then onwards to my new adventure: Staff! I start on 3/21.
I first want to thank my teammates & all the people with whom I worked during this time. These are folks with whom I enjoyed working greatly. We navigated some crazy circumstances together –like that time our L6+L7+L8 managers all left within a month!– Some people moved on, and then some got promoted – thank you all for letting me be a part of your journeys. All-n-all, we had a lot of fun.
I also want to thank the company for the opportunity. I joined this company as an engineer and am leaving as a different one. I learned a great deal of things.
I internalized Amazon's leadership principles, outstandingly 4: Ownership, Be right, a lot, Invent & simplify, & Frugality.
I learned that ownership is what makes you thrive at any given level, and that to own is to care for things as if they were your own – being passionate, developing opinions, and taking pride in your craft – you're, at the end of the day, in the driver seat. As an L4 engineer, you own features, as an L5, services, and as an L6, architectures, but at every step of the way you own your team's culture & kaizen.
I learned to be right, a lot. I learned that to be right a lot doesn't mean to be right from the get-go, but to eventually be right. I understood that you must seek to disproof your own beliefs: Why will this not work? Why should this person not be promoted? What are the dogs not barking?
I learned that simplifying is as important as inventing, and that paying back tech debt is indeed simplifying.
I learned that being frugal is a matter not of minimizing the inputs but of getting the max value out of the resources you've at hand – and time and energy are indeed finite resources. What should you be working on that maximizes the value you're adding???
I also learned that to get promoted you have to operate at the next level, and that doing exactly what your manager tells you to won't get you anywhere. I learned that most up-leveling opportunities have to be carved out, and that they're rarely given to you in a silver platter –though sometimes they are!– I learned that it is you that has to navigate the process, and that even though a stakeholder, it's not your manager's responsibility to get you promoted – although a good manager will take this as his/her/their goal.
Lastly, I learned how to write! (Although I still have my doubts on this!)
When I joined Amazon I set out to achieve 2 goals: Stick around in a company long enough to actually produce work that moved the needle, and to get promoted. Previously, I had switched companies quite often; this time around, I stayed put – and thus I designed & launched services that are nowadays used by 15M customers! How crazy is that?! I also wanted to get promoted, if only to prove to myself that I could do it; I wanted to get to the next level not by moving but by sticking around.
Hindsight being 20/20, I guess that I wouldn't have transferred out of Amazon Go. Go was an org with a high technical bar and experiencing great growth, & I could have grown with it. I transferred because I got frustrated for having been assigned a project that I thought would have low impact – how was I to get promoted with such a low impact project? I now realize that by kicking ass on that project and having a little more patience I could have achieved my goals earlier. At some point I even discussed this with my former manager, and he agreed – heh, it's all water under the bridge now. I would also have owned my promo process earlier. I ranted and bickered for a long while before realizing that it was me and not my manager who should be in the driver seat – though it did take a pretty harsh conversation with a Principal Engineer –in which he asked me, pretty flustered, why was I losing his time?!– to realize it. Don't get me wrong – Brand Follow was fantastic; serendipity put me in the driver seat of a large project and that eventually got me promoted, but I recon that luck played a big part.
I'm leaving because when I first joined Amazon, I wanted to learn what is it that makes such a large engineering organization tick. Although I still don't know (ha!), I have an inkling of an idea – and now I want to disproof my own beliefs :) I also want to change domains & tech stacks, and to keep learning! I want to feel excited & energized, and I think I'm just about to get that – switching is going to be healthy, both professionally and personally, and I look very much forward to it.
Lastly, what's next? I'll take a week off & then onwards to my new adventure: Staff! I start on 3/21.