Amazon Leadership Principles

I worked at AWS for 8 years. Overall it’s a good place to work, and I’d highly recommend it to junior developers just starting out. I left 4 months ago, but it wasn’t Amazon’s fault. I was treated well, was paid very well, and I liked the work. But I was always going to be working on someone else’s terms there, and I realized that wasn’t the ideal career path for me. I like working for myself better, but I don’t regret my time at Amazon.<p>——<p>Edit: Here’s my comp progression at Amazon for those curious:<p>2010: €50K - Joined Amazon in Dublin, Ireland as an SDE-1 (entry level) in the AWS CloudWatch team.<p>2011: €75K - Still at Amazon, same team.<p>2012: $120K - Moved to Seattle with the same team. Promoted to SDE-2.<p>2013: $150K - Still at Amazon, same team.<p>2014: $185K - Promoted to SDE-3 (senior level), same team.<p>2015: $230K - Still at Amazon, same team.<p>2016: $390K - Still at Amazon, same team.<p>2017: $470K - Still at Amazon, same team.<p>2018: $511K - Still at Amazon, same team.<p>2019: Left Amazon last February. You can read more about why here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19135399" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19135399</a><p>All figures are gross income as shown in my W2. My last 3 year-end (Dec) paystubs: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;EgIVQln" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;EgIVQln</a>

I have (successfully) interviewed with Amazon. One of the reasons I turned the job down was my experience in the interview.<p>My &quot;loop&quot; was done by people who spend an hour with me asking my questions designed to see if I fit into these &quot;principles&quot;. After the third interview, I was exhausted by parroting the same damn story multiple times - I mean, how many stories can you come up with?<p>The bar-raiser was changed at the last minute and I got some random dude on the phone who clearly had no idea what the job was about. He spent his hour interrupting me and peppering me with random questions. I&#x27;ve been a lawyer and am used to this so it was not an issue, but it was an all around weird, cult-like experience.<p>I did well enough to get an offer, but when I walked out of the interview I&#x27;d called up my wife and told her I would never join a company that seems to be more cult and less company.<p>The whole vibe was just super weird. I mean, I&#x27;m used to big tech companies thinking that they are doing world changing work (Msft, Goog. Never interviewed with FB), but this was entirely on a different scale.

<i>Shrug</i> I would take these more seriously if I felt amazon was executing at an impressive level. Honestly though, I feel like AWS (what I consider their flagship, most-profitable product) runs on a windows-95-level interface and is missing the most rudimentary features for over a decade.<p>If your results aren&#x27;t successful, then your methodology must not be successful.

Ugh.<p>&quot;Are Right, A Lot&quot; - what is this, a magnet for egomaniacs?<p>&quot;Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit&quot;...<p>These two mixed feel super toxic. The others are important, but these seem to override the humility necessary for learning...

Cult Commandments

Also, 1) Work new hires to death, 2) Make employees cry, 3) Pay like sh*t