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Amazon's Leadership Principles

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Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#31

Post by sdmetacarpus »

OneUnitOfWork wrote: post #15
felixgallo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for Amazon, and my management line all the way up to Jeff is sensible, comprehensible, and human; I have good work-life balance and am able to offer that to my reports; my compensation is fair; and I would escalate immediately if I ever saw anyone abused, mistreated, or cheated. Amazon's a big company and I'm sure there's terrible managers out there and true harrowing stories. And there are problems, here and…

Having worked in AWS Data Centres in Australia and India, I'm curious to know why you think the average DC technician leaves after 9 months? Gotta love a work-life balance that forces you to work weekends and public holidays! The culture _IS_ the issue at Amazon - you either learn to put up with the BS metrics your managers push down your throat or you leave for somewhere that treats you like a human being.

Having worked in AWS DCO- there's a lot of factors.

You were under a shit manager. APAC Regions manager is inept. Dublin was also filled with fucking idiots.

DCO's upper management in general is a fuckfest of people who want to play big man but have no idea what metrics ARE. They have no basic grasp of math nor do they know how to find what they need. I'd be shocked if they could tell you what an average value is from a set of numbers.

That said- there was a huge fucking technical gulf between the average DT and an engineer. So many DTs wanted to be SDEs or Sysengs, but their real world technical competency is that of a junior sysadmin at best so they saw no real room for promotion.

These days, automation removes the learning part of it. AWS back in the day- you could have techs that would qualify as mid level sysadmins at other companies. Today- the scale is so huge and the fleet so automated that it's mostly just throwing motherboards at problems and swapping harddrives. They want to turn the datacenter work into the equivalent of warehouse work so that they can hire any body off the street can do the job. The hilarious irony is that you now get former aws datatechs with it on their resume entering the technical market who have no business doing so.

Finally- I think it's an issue of just large companies in general. As the group grows, you inevitably hire assholes who make asshole moves and poison the corporate environment. Amazon grew so fast and hired so fast- there's no way that this could be avoided.

DCO just kinda sucked if you were less than a level5.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#32

Post by knucklesandwich »

6stringmerc wrote: post #12

Leaders are willing to take a 100x salary compared to their line employees because they know they can hustle hard enough to live up to the expectations. I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a customary 8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and walk out with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership. No, really. Principles not tested in the fire…

> Leaders are willing to take a 100x salary compared to their line employees because they know they can hustle hard enough to live up to the expectations.

> I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a customary 8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and walk out with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership.

Sometimes I just have to sit and marvel at how many layers of ideology some of you folks are on.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#33

Post by rileymat2 »

6stringmerc wrote: post #12

Leaders are willing to take a 100x salary compared to their line employees because they know they can hustle hard enough to live up to the expectations. I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a customary 8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and walk out with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership. No, really. Principles not tested in the fire…

> I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a customary 8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and walk out with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership.

I feel like there is a big difference between getting through some shifts, and looking at it for the next few years.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#34

Post by [deleted] »

6stringmerc wrote: post #12

Leaders are willing to take a 100x salary compared to their line employees because they know they can hustle hard enough to live up to the expectations. I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a customary 8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and walk out with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership. No, really. Principles not tested in the fire…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#35

Post by jshmrsn »

jsolson wrote: post #29
jshmrsn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on dude, this is just embarrassing. Amazon has created very real value for a wide variety of customers and for shareholders. Off the top of my head: - Amazon online shopping - AWS - Kindle e-reader - Alexa I do not work for Amazon, but I do live in Seattle and see thousands of Amazon employees walking around SLU at lunch time. They generally appear happy. Im sure there's terrible exceptions amongst the many thou…

I worked there for a couple years, and I still live in Seattle. If possible, I will not work there again. It was not a bad place, but it was also not a good place. It took leaving (which I almost didn't do) to realize that second part. That's largely why I won't go back. There's a strong commitment within the company to the idea that you're part of something bigger, and that being part of that makes sacrificing comp,…

Yep, total respect for it not being a great place in every situation, or worse for some. I just found my comment's parent very... unrealistic.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#36

Post by Bahamut »

Some of these are contradictory - in addition, some of these aren't really even leadership principles of much merit outside the company they're created for.

Here is an example of a proven set of leadership principles that is a worthwhile read: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm . Someone who can embody all of these principles that the Marine Corps espouses is someone I can respect immensely regardless of profession.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#37

Post by Zombieball »

ktRolster wrote: post #20
TheGRS wrote: post #13

Do these leadership or company principles ever truly have any effect on employees or products? I've seen them thrown around at my company on a few occasions, but they never feel like they drive much beyond trying to be one of those gaudy motivational posters.

It depends on how they're implemented. At my previous company, there was a small list of principles posted on the wall, such as, "make each other better," "show integrity." I was astonished one day when I realized that I had seen several people at different levels of the company actually try to make each other better. It inspired me, personally, and made me glad to work at that company. Famously, IBM used to have the…

Just to clarify, as others have pointed out, the leadership principles at Amazon are in no way a new experiment. I don't know their origins but I wouldn't be surprised to learn they are nearly as old as the company itself (probably a few years younger).

They are deeply engrained in Amazon culture. They are brought up frequently. They are used as the basis for both hiring and promotion decisions.

Regardless of whether or not you (or employees) agree with them. I think what's interesting is that you call them out as too long to be useful. But my guess is +90% of salaried employees at Amazon could recite all of them and give examples of what they intend to convey. I suppose this is a testament to Amazon HR?

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#38

Post by felixgallo »

candiodari wrote: post #11
felixgallo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for Amazon, and my management line all the way up to Jeff is sensible, comprehensible, and human; I have good work-life balance and am able to offer that to my reports; my compensation is fair; and I would escalate immediately if I ever saw anyone abused, mistreated, or cheated. Amazon's a big company and I'm sure there's terrible managers out there and true harrowing stories. And there are problems, here and…

Do you think those articles about conditions in the warehouses are lying ? If so, why ? What I mean to say is, the odds of those conditions being either unintentional or just local aberrations seems rather small given the widespread articles about it from around the world. Germany, UK, US, ... everywhere workers are complaining about things like sick people getting fired, mandatory unpaid overtime, constant tracking…

I can't speak for any other experience than my own. I suspect some or most of the stories have truth to them; one day I hope to work a shift and find out for myself.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#39

Post by kpil »

kkelleey wrote: post #26

The emphasis on "customer obsession" is clearly working, since it has topped the polls for best corporate reputation two years in a row. http://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-tops-harris-poll-corpora... I work for Amazon, and I personally am a huge fan of the "LPs" . I consistently find myself mentally consulting them when I'm not sure what to do in a particular situation. I also think it really helps to work in an env…

How could that be?

I stopped buying from Amazon after reading about how they treat their warehouse employees.

To me, Amazon just represents monopolistic corporate greed, with no aspiration of caring even just a little bit about anything else.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#40

Post by brut »

greyskull wrote: post #27
brut wrote: post #21

So how much do they pay for this kind of job? And how much latitude are you given as a "leader"? Is it all talk or are they serious about this? I don't really care if I can buy a private jet but I will put in a lot of hours if that means I get to live a life never caring about money (> 200k a year). I've seen this said before in other companies ("we want leaders") but when it's time to put some resources into X or Y…

Amazon tries to push Leadership Principles into every part of at least their corporate world. It's supposed to drive decision making for basically everyone, brand new engineers on up (I don't know if they push them lower down the stack). What I'm getting at is it's not solely for "leaders" as in high level folks. > live a life never caring about money (> 200k a year) I'm in my 3rd year as an engineer here (and of my…

Thanks for the data point. I'm looking at openings in Canada and the only numbers I've found during a cursory search were 'Salary Range: $80,000 to $140,000/yr, commensurate with experience' for a 'Research Scientist II' position.
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