[HN Gopher] Inside Amazon's engineering culture: Lessons from th...
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Inside Amazon's engineering culture: Lessons from their senior
principals
Author : Olshansky
Score : 34 points
Date : 2025-10-28 20:12 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (olshansky.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (olshansky.substack.com)
| throwaway439080 wrote:
| The thing I learned from Amazon's senior principals is that
| actually it's good and normal to turn red in the face and scream
| at your junior colleagues that they're fucking idiots when they
| have the temerity to politely disagree with you.
| damn_trolls wrote:
| They get it from senior management, and pass it down like
| generational trauma. This was a problem even in 2013 when I
| worked there. Once, I was new and actually pushed back against
| a Director level person's poor behavior in a 70 person meeting,
| because I didn't know better. I was approached by multiple
| individuals afterwards telling me how "brave" it was of me.
|
| At Amazon, unkind and downright unprofessional behavior by
| people higher up the chain is normalized, and has been for a
| very long time.
| tekla wrote:
| I've never worked directly for Amazon, but for a consultancy
| that was an AWS Partner.
|
| I got an invite to a team skip level meeting once, and holy
| shit I could not believe the asshole and bullshit crap those
| seniors were tossing at each other, at the Partner manager, and
| also us.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| There's a reason Bezos decided to bulk up. Gonna need some of
| that when people decide to throw hands at all hands.
| kaonwarb wrote:
| An oddly gauzy piece. As an ex-Amazonian, I recommend the
| (complimentary, insider-written) book "Working Backwards" for
| those interested in a substantive look at how Amazon ticks.
| vandyswa wrote:
| With Amazon layoff blood running in the gutters today, I'm sure
| their PR people shook the tree to get something nice to drop onto
| the interwebitudes.
| ge96 wrote:
| some of you... may die...
| alephnerd wrote:
| The Amazon culture that exists today is nowhere comparable to
| the culture that existed 5-7 years ago.
|
| A lot of the Amazonians who had a "mission first" mindset at
| the mid- and upper-level rungs of engineering and product
| management all ended up become leadership or executive
| management at other companies, or founding their own companies.
|
| That said, it is important to highlight the mindset that did
| help Amazon during it's golden era.
| harshalizee wrote:
| 5-7 years isn't that long ago and it was just as terrible
| back then. Yeah, the same "leaders" now have infected other
| tech companies with their culture and are actively ruining
| the industry.
| ncr100 wrote:
| 14,000 corporate jobs, laid off, today.
| palmotea wrote:
| > 14,000 corporate jobs, laid off, today.
|
| Hey, cut them some slack. They're barely getting by: they
| only made $18 billion in profit last quarter. They gotta cut
| some dead weight to stay solvent.
| speff wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand this viewpoint. Just because a
| company made a big profit doesn't mean it has to keep
| positions it decides is unneeded. This isn't the first time
| I've seen this type of attitude and I'm genuinely curious
| about the alternative. Once you make above $X in profit,
| you're obligated to keep employees who aren't necessarily
| doing the work you want done?
| jackdoe wrote:
| or you wait for the inspector's call.
| bdangubic wrote:
| 14k is _massive_ layoff, even for a company as large as
| amazon. it isn't about the "employees who aren't
| necessarily doing the work you want done" for sure (all
| the while they are off-shoring by the more thousands
| while "america first"-run government is bailing out
| argentine :)
| speff wrote:
| That's 4% of corporate employees going by Reuter's 350k
| corp employee count[0]. Sounds well within the trimming-
| the-fat numbers. The rest of your comment alludes to an
| obligation towards improving the domestic economy. That
| can be done through regulation, but then there's a
| balancing act between under/over regulation. Too much and
| you end up in an EU situation that hinders small tech
| business growth.
|
| So we come back to my previous statement/question. Above
| what profit amount should a company be obligated to keep
| (in their eyes) unproductive workers?
|
| [0]: https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-
| work/amazon-target...
| whatever1 wrote:
| Hi, people are not widgets.
|
| They take huge personal, family and financial risks to
| move for a job. When you are getting rid en-masse people,
| you are ruining local communities. There is a real
| societal cost.
|
| It also sucks for businesses, because hiring & onboarding
| is so freaking hard and expensive. Not to mention that
| once the company has established a reputation of a
| revolving door, then nobody gives a shit about it. They
| will exploit it for the short term and let it die.
|
| Layoffs should the absolute last resort for a company due
| to the disruption they cause. If the market dynamics do
| not naturally lead to this, then regulation should shape
| the field.
| speff wrote:
| I absolutely agree with your assessment that it should be
| the last resort option due to the societal cost of a
| large number of people losing their job. On top of the
| risks you mention, there's also the mental hit that often
| accompanies layoffs not just for the folks who were
| fired, but the increased feeling of paranoia from the
| people who are left.
|
| But can it not be the case the this /was/ the company's
| last resort? There's another option of moving people
| around and retraining them to do another function. What
| if that was considered and then rejected because there
| weren't enough departments growing to warrant that?
| Rhetorically, if they don't have the ability/opportunity
| to re-assign people, then what?
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| They're people, not disposable objects. The alternative
| would be to distribute the cost of the layoffs evenly
| across the employer and the employees. Right now
| employees pay a disproportionate portion of the cost.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > The word balance never came up.
|
| Probably why it's considered one of the worst places to work for.
| Works well when you are a small company that is trying to attract
| talent to build great things with the promise of big rewards.
| Doesn't actually work that well when you're trying to keep an
| established company stable and don't offer much in return. If all
| you can offer is mediocre pay and a threat of PIP if I don't work
| 60+ hours, I'd rather stay unemployed.
| dheera wrote:
| Amazon doesn't actually pay mediocre, they are very good for
| FAANG standards. But yes, when you have already cut out the
| slackers and _still_ are required to PIP x% of every team
| despite everyone being competent, everyones ' coworker
| relationships automatically become competitive, not
| collaborative. The culture starts to become a rat race of
| people working nights and weekends, each trying to not become
| the one whose family and children might have to get uprooted
| and leave the US within 60 days because of a PIP.
|
| Meta is another dumpster fire. The highest level you can
| receive at a promo cycle is "Redefines Expectations".
| Congratulations, you have worked so goddamn hard, your reward
| is a redefined expectation and the next cycle if you work
| _equally goddamn hard_ you will only "meet" that newly-
| redefined expectation. You're on track to a PIP!
| saagarjha wrote:
| Amazon pays pretty mediocre. After their boosts during the
| pandemic they're solidly middle of the pack above Apple and
| Microsoft but below Meta and Google.
| yahoozoo wrote:
| > There was only talk of customer obsession and solving problems
| at scale--imagining the biggest problem possible, then
| multiplying it by ten.
|
| cringe
| constantcrying wrote:
| I am sorry, but none of this is about engineering culture, it
| might as well apply to Walmart.
|
| It again is pretty clear that Software development has no
| engineering culture. If you are faced with a problem in hardware,
| you can not patch it, so much of an engineering culture is about
| how to define what different parts of the organization want and
| how they can be fulfilled and validated. This also becomes clear
| when the article talks about the director, in any hardware
| company he is the person who must be informed about the processes
| and who must himself communicate about his state in the
| development process.
|
| The article brings in the word "Craft" which I think is very
| descriptive. Software development has a culture of craftsmanship,
| which values individual contributions of craftsmen, not
| processes.
|
| (Also a hardware company can not fire 14.000 of their engineers,
| without becoming non-functional)
| dwb wrote:
| > The word balance never came up.
|
| Hope you Deliver enough Impact before you burn out. Honestly
| sounds like a corporate brainwashing effort more than anything.
| "Senior principal engineer"? What's next, "Senior staff principal
| engineer"?
| the_panopticon wrote:
| I think the subsequent level is 'Distinguished Engineer.'
| That's terminal AFAIK. Maybe they'll need a 'Sr DE' someday?
| saagarjha wrote:
| One would think you'd have more tact than to post this today.
| samrus wrote:
| Its damage mitigation. I was waiting for actual insights but
| its all pr fluff
| ruben81ad wrote:
| Amazon was an innovative, day 1 company, but it is not any more.
| They are becoming an IBM.
|
| Enshitification is here: they are doing mass layoffs
| periodically, and you don't hear innovative news from AWS any
| more.
|
| Additionally, companies are realising that they are pretty much
| using a minor offering of the AWS products, competitors are
| catching up, and every day there are lessser reasons to pay the
| AWS premium.
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