My Last day at Amazon

Ramin Grewal - 7 min read

For me, the lines between failure and success are starting to blur. I feel that I have failed more than I have succeeded in the past few years, but each failure has brought upon a completely new perspective about life, myself and my career.

I am so grateful for my recent experience at Amazon. The experience taught me valuable lessons that I will take with me wherever I go; I met some of the most incredible individuals in my professional life and the experience taught me so much about myself.

Just few months into my experience at Amazon, I began having new revelations about myself and I wanted to share my journey with you. This post is not a reflection about someone or something, it’s simply a reflection about my inner journey.

My hope is that this read will help you on your professional and personal journey as well. 

I began my venture at Amazon as a Contractor as a Finance Recruiter (this was my first time taking on a contract role in my life) and my career at Amazon ended as a Contractor. I had begun my journey with wide aspirations as I envision this to be the place where I could bring my vision/creativity/skills to life as it’s known for a place of innovation and big ideas. I remember the excitement I felt knowing I was heading exactly where I wanted to be and join an organization of my dreams. There was no doubt in me that in the Amazon’s badge system of green, blue, yellow, red, purple… that one day I would convert from a contract green badger and become a fulltime blue badger. I had heard about contractors who didn’t convert and I automatically thought to myself that they probably weren’t “bar raising” individuals and I was certain that wouldn’t be me. (ha!)

Often times when we hear of individuals who start their career in a contract role and end with a contract role or of individuals who are dismissed from their permanent position within a year (especially at reputable companies like Amazon) — we often question the individual’s performance and character before considering any other perspective. And those individuals in return, often question their own abilities and skillsets and ultimately, they question their own value.

But most often, the reality is that it just wasn’t the best fit. And that’s OK. Those experiences should be allowed, accepted and actually celebrated. Because the outcome shouldn’t be a reflection on our abilities or on anyone else’s choices but for the redirection it provides for us all. And more importantly, those exact experiences should be celebrated because they lead us one step closer to finding out what we are really good at and what we are not so good at.

If you ask me if my experience of non-conversion at Amazon was justified, I would firmly tell you yes. No matter the outcomes in my life, I always try to take 100% responsibility.

See, I was hired to do a certain job and somewhere down my journey here, I started failing at that Job. Let’s say I was hired to serve coffee, after a few months of learning the trade and making coffees, I got curious to understand how the machine worked (LP Learn and Be Curious) and if there were better ways of making coffee (LP Invent and Simplify) and then I started coming up with new and what I thought would be “better” and creative ways of making coffee (LP Think Big) and that process completely impacted the number of coffees I was producing (LP Deliver Results) and it caused my team members to question my intentions and abilities (LP Earn Trust). And by the time I received feedback, reflected on my undertaking of those new initiatives (Vocally self-critical) and changed the course of my ship back into focusing on delivering coffee for few months again — the time was up.

Looking back I can see that I focused too much on the bigger picture and placed my efforts on thinking and figuring out new ideas/initiatives (LP Ownership) to attract talent. Problem was though, not all of my efforts and ideas delivered the results I envisioned. And more importantly, this wasn’t what I was hired to do. I was not hired to analyze problems. I wasn’t paid to question the status quo, undertake new initiatives and take risks. My job as a Contractor was to simply build a strong pipeline of candidates and make hires — I was simply hired to make coffees.

And I literally failed to do the JOB I was paid to do. And this is on me and no one else. I had the right intentions but not the smartest execution strategy. And it wasn’t fair to my team members that I came in with my own agenda and ideas and didn’t pull my weight for some time. See what I learned from my experience is that in the first year at Amazon, the most important aspects are to Deliver Results and Earn Trust (makes sense). Especially in a large organization where each individual is an essential “nuts and bolts” of a bigger machine. The employee has to do their assigned job and deliver those results to move the machine forward. And I failed to recognize the most important performance metrics of my role.

This experience taught me firsthand the true importance of Amazon’s 14 leadership principles that all leaders/Amazonians need to exhibit to be “bar raising”. And I learned that sometimes we end up focusing our attention on specific principles at the expense of other principles but a true leader/Amazonian is someone who is mindful and incorporates all the leadership principles in their professional life. Another important aspect I learned at Amazon was how to create an epic focused work ethic as I learned how to focus single mindedly on the task at hand rather than letting my curious mind pull me in different directions. I knew even if the extra efforts didn’t result in any favorable outcome, I was creating exactly the work ethics needed to take on new future challenges. And I also learned a lot about myself in terms of my strengths and weaknesses and a strong sense of my skillset and interests. I learned that I am not good at “boxed” roles and that I need to be in a role that provides flexibility and creativity and the opportunity to take risk, fail and rise again. And most importantly — this experience has made me more humble in life.

But my main intention of sharing my experience is that sometimes if things in life don’t go as we planned, intended, or hoped, we either point the finger at someone or we point the finger at ourselves. But if we look at our career “failures” from an objective perspective, often times it’s because there just wasn’t a good fit in terms of skillset/interest/role or team members/management. And it’s a very common occurrence and we should be able to openly share these stories, relate and learn from one another. Because often times, the failure and lessons learned from these experiences can lead us to the right opportunity.

And this now leads me to a very interesting phase of my life and career. I am lucky that I have made amazing professional connections in my tenure in Seattle who I look up to and who I would love to work for but this is the first time I have intentionally decided to be out of a job/career and take time off to figure out exactly what the ideal career looks like for me and use this experience as a learning opportunity to understand where I would be a good long term fit.

I am entering a land of uncertainty and wonder. It’s like having a complete empty slate. I am not tied to any career, relationship or even a place; the world all of a sudden has just opened up and I can create anything from this place I am standing.

One thing I know for certain though, the skillset and interests that made me fail at this job are exactly the skillset and interests I am going to focus and build on to find/create a career for myself. What made me fail yesterday is what I can utilize to build tomorrow’s success.

Thus, I am so grateful for my experience at Amazon and know whole heartedly this is going to be one of many pivotal movements in my life. And I have created such amazing connections that there is a chance that I may come back one day - in a role that is more aligned with my skillset/interests. 

I would like to say thanks to everyone that I met at Amazon! The people I worked with were incredible and I appreciate my teammates for being patient and understanding of me. And special thank you to my Mentor at Amazon who I would connect with on a monthly basis for support and guidance (I will never forget his generosity) and who’s successful career at Amazon and strong leadership skills I truly admire. And lastly, thank you to all the hiring managers I worked with, who were just incredible, thoughtful and inspiring; I will always cherish the connections and memories build with them.

In the end, thanks to Amazon in general! It taught me so many things in such a short period of time and I will always be grateful for the experience. It taught me how to be laser focused, how to create strong work ethics and most importantly, it helped me learn so much about myself :) 

Let’s see where life takes me from here!

(Post written at Amazon Spheres, one of the things that I will miss dearly)