Lessons from 5 years of working at Amazon

'What's it like to work at Amazon?'

It's a question I still get asked a lot, despite it being more than a year since I left the company to pursue other opportunities.

For almost five years, I worked across three different parts of the business, collaborating with countless Amazonians, spending time with hundreds of customers, traveling the world with colleagues—many who’ve become close friends, and achieving some proud professional milestones. Those five years exist as an important period of my career that will be difficult to surpass, a point in time I wouldn't change or trade for anything. I learnt a lot about myself, which has ultimately made me a better Marketer, thinker, and human.

These are some of the key learnings and advice I would offer from my time as an Amazonian:

1. The Hiring Loop is Tough

One of the things you will appreciate in hindsight, is the toughness of the interview process. There is a quality bar that exists within Amazon’s recruitment practice, and it’s there for a reason. Attracting the best talent in the industry as an employer isn’t enough. You also need to go through a rigorous assessment and selection process before even making it through the door. This was and remains the toughest interview I’ve ever been subjected to in my 20+ year career.

There are countless articles and materials online that break-down what the process entails, so I won’t go into the semantics. My advice is simple: preparation. Your recruiter wants you to succeed and will give you all the information you need to come out the other end successful. Listen to the guidance. Familiarize yourself with the leadership principals (LP), prepare at least 3-4 examples for each LP that demonstrate alignment to the company values, and follow the S-T-A-R framework.

Your interviewers will be tough. They will also be polite, engaging, and interested in not just who you are, but also how you construct your ideas, the quality of the examples you provide, and your ability to articulate your thoughts with precision. It’s thanks to this hiring rigour that you will end up working in a high-performing environment with some amazing people. I can point to countless examples where I’ve had to elevate my own thinking just by being exposed to colleagues and peers of an exceptional calibre. Trust me, it makes the experience.

2. Live and Die by the LPs

I've worked in companies where the company mission and values have been poorly defined, disingenuous—or in some cases, non-existent. So I will forgive you for finding the in-your-face, confrontational approach Amazonians adopt to the LPs somewhat comical. I was one of those people.

You will quickly find that the LPs are no laughing matter. They permeate across the business and will regularly be used by Amazonians of every tenure to support discussions or to weaponize during crucial decision-making. Yes, you’ll find them blazed across walls in every office. But they go far beyond token sloganism. Find the two or three that inherently connect to who you are (my favourites: Learn & Be Curious; Insist on High Standards; Think Big), and allow the LPs to support you through how to create an impact in your role.

3. Work Hard at Becoming a Better Writer

I’ve been maintaining my website on and off since 2014, and while I don’t consider myself a writer in the journalistic sense, I knew I had reasonably OK written communication. Or so I thought. One of the skills I will take away and treasure is how much my writing has improved because of the sheer volume of documents you will produce during your time as an Amazonian.

This can be quite jarring for new employees for several reasons. Firstly, if you come from a culture of PowerPoint and are now expected to produce narrative-form documents, the switch requires a lot of unlearn-relearn behaviour. Writing isn’t something you just pick-up. It’s like a muscle you must constantly work at and develop, which realistically can only be achieved over time and by writing more.

Secondly, the quality bar for written documents is high, and goes beyond clarity of thought and the quality of the ideas presented. You will be scrutinized for structure, grammar and expressing yourself with concise and precise language. For colleagues who English is not their native tongue, this can be an additional source of stress from the outset.

And lastly, the experience of your first narrative read will be a test of character. I remember mine very well and irrationally hated everyone in the room that day for picking apart a document I had put my heart and soul into perfecting. Don’t take it personally. It’s part of the fabric of how business is conducted at Amazon, and the net result will be the best version of a document you could have ever written.

4. Be Prepared for Scrutiny and Critique

This goes hand in hand with my last point above. It is essential you adopt a mindset where you’re open to taking feedback, and ready to debate your point of view with anyone. You can’t expect to be surrounded by bright and opinionated colleagues, without ever being challenged in ways that can sometimes come across as unnecessary or abrasive.

The intentions for the most part are always good. Even though it may not feel that way in the moment, your peers and management team are there to encourage you to do better. Be better. It requires developing thick skin and the right psyche, which is character-building if nothing else.

If you’re more of an intuition-based personality type, remember that data is king at Amazon. Building a series of axioms is fine, so long as you can present hard facts or solid anecdotes to support your ideas. Socialize these early and let others help guide how they shape up. It’s good practice ahead of the narrative read, and I always made a point of creating the time to provide preliminary feedback to colleagues, knowing how valuable it is to the process.

5. Learn and Be Curious

One of the aspects of working at Amazon I enjoyed enormously was the internal mobility opportunities afforded to all employees. There are so many facets to the business, and the enormous success of the company meant we were perpetually in hiring mode.

As an employee, you are encouraged to be inquisitive. It’s one of the LPs that resonated with me the most, and the catalyst for wanting to expose myself to different parts of the organization. While it would be impossible to master everything about your line of business, in some ways, the organization actively encourages you to think about where else you can implant yourself and apply your skills and expertise.

There is an 18-24 month itch that starts to take over many an Amazonian. It tends to culminate in one of several outcomes—either getting promoted, taking on a new role within your existing company, or moving to a completely new part of the Amazon org.

I am one of those incredibly fortunate people who was given some great growth opportunities. While I joined Amazon to help build the startup business (a role I loved), getting a chance to work on the Games side of Amazon (an industry I had no prior experience of), and then being part of a cross-portfolio special projects team were the sort of opportunities that enriched my time with the company. I felt trusted and empowered to make the most of my career, while staying curious and learning new things.

6. The People Make It

It would be na?ve to think you will like everyone you work with. The same goes for Amazonians. You will most definitely encounter some shitty types that will eventually get managed out of the business as the system corrects itself. Some will leave. Some you’ll just learn to co-exist with.

But then there are the ones you bond with, the ones who challenge and support you, lift you up, make you laugh, have your back, teach you things, push you to be better. Thank you for everything. I appreciate you Noam Kaiser ?? ?????? , Tim Boeckmann , Richard Howard , Sonia Ouarti , Bob Van Nortwick , Rob Bradburn , Bijal N. , Katrin Kull , Raz Bachar , Mackenzie Kosut , Claus Verner , Matthias Malojer , Cecilia Brezmes Alonso , Rob De Feo , Adam FitzGerald , Iliyana Ilieva-Gulamerian , Simon Frost , Jose Manuel Rodriguez Martinez , Monica Trantow , Jessica Formosa , Sofia Toll , Leandro Doeyo , Jonathan Rudd , Katherine Smith , Lior Penso , Henri Zietsman , Shayan S. , Catarina Bandeira , Jonno Southam , Ramat Tejani , Ivana Gaspic , Shiri B. , Darren Mowry , Eric M. , Griffin Parry , John Griffin , Liam McClary , Sophia Granfors , Marcos Fasja , Cecile Bonnet , Suzana Curic , Michael Copeland , Michelle Kung , Andreas Chatzakis , Arni Birgisson , Ian Massingham , Ellie Lawson , Sarah Calveley , Maud Tournay , Stephanie Lavocat , Adrian Hornsby , Saoud Moco , Andjela Kusmuk ?? , Alexis Dahan , Rachel Van Dinter , Nina-Carine Feile , Umut Ersara? ???? , Ina Yulo Stuve , Sebastian B?hr , Ed Smith ?? GDC , Kellen O'Connor , Johan Broman , Kolbrun Yr Jonsdottir , Mark Bate ?? GDC , Katie Wells , Nikhil Narayan , Cécilia des Courtis (Gouby) and the countless others I'm prone to have forgotten (sorry ???).

Writing this post, I am aware that I've not acknowledged some of the criticisms made of Amazon as an employer. This is not the focus of my piece. No employer is perfect and there was much at Amazon I instinctively felt the need to rally against, because it didn't always align with my view of the world at the time. Some of these views I still maintain today.

My intention in writing this piece was to communicate the positive aspects of my experience and share these in the spirit of providing what I hope is a helpful reference point for anyone considering Amazon as a future employer. It doesn't remove my ability to empathize or find common ground with employees who have expressed different frustrations. It just wasn't the experience I had and therefore, I feel ill-equipped to comment on someone else's point of view.

Thank you for reading this far. Let me know if you have any follow-up points or questions - either by commenting here, or via a DM. I'll do my best to reply to your feedback.

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