Why Amazon's culture makes me a better engineer (5 principles)
Discover the secrets behind Amazon's success and apply their leadership principles as an engineer. Learn effective communication strategies, setting clear expectations, and making decisions.
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If I traveled tomorrow to China, I wouldn’t understand a word.
That was the first feeling when I joined Amazon.
Everybody talked in a shared language I didn’t understand it, even if they used English words.
But after onboarding, I got the vocabulary.
And now working is much easier, we talk the same language.
I love learning about company culture and after watching an interview with Jeff Bezos, I decided to write about these principles.
In this post, you’ll learn
How to communicate with any other job family, and understand each other.
How to set a company-wide standard of expectations at your job.
How to make decisions when all alternatives seem feasible.
How to create principles for your systems, and still maintain an open mindset to change opinions.
How to make a plan for the most extravagant visions, and achieve them
#1 Leadership principles
It doesn’t matter if you are an engineer or an accountant.
To be a top performer, everyone expects you to never say “That’s not my problem”
People expect they can trust you when you start doing some work…
This is what the leadership principles define. They are independent of the job family. Besides a common vocabulary for day-to-day situations, they also serve for promotions and performance evaluation.
This is a concept Jeff Bezos has created both at Amazon and Blue Origin.
All companies define similar cultural principles:
Amazon: “Bias for action”.
Facebook: “Move fast and break things”.
Revolut: “Get (sh)it done”.
They are not novel ideas. But they are a vocabulary people can use to communicate.
The same vocabulary is used in engineer team meetings as in the letters to shareholders.
Long-term thinking is both a requirement and an outcome of true ownership. Owners are different from tenants. I know of a couple who rented out their house, and the family who moved in nailed their Christmas tree to the hardwood floors instead of using a tree stand. Expedient, I suppose, and admittedly these were particularly bad tenants, but no owner would be so short-sighted. Similarly, many investors are effectively short-term tenants, turning their portfolios so quickly they are really just renting the stocks that they temporarily “own.”
-Jeff Bezos about the ownership Leadership Principle (2003 letter to shareholders)
#2 Role Guidelines
When I was onboarding as a new hire, I always wondered if I’d be progressing fast enough.
Setting expectations with your manager is important. But we can’t forget manager is just one opinion.
And what if I’m on good or bad terms with the manager? My day-to-day may be easier or harder, but it was a realization that I wouldn’t be promoted or fired just because of that.
Having a public criteria everyone can check is important. It affects everyone:
People will know if they are meeting expectations in their current role
People will know how can they perform at the next level
#3 A single obsession
If I try to be rich, be healthy, be a great engineer, be a great person in all my relationships, be the best student… I may improve in those areas, but I won’t become the best.
But if I have a single focus that drives my actions for 20+ years, I’ll likely become the best in this single focus.
That’s the mindset Jeff puts into his companies. Amazon was going to be the most customer-obsessed company. And Blue Origin was going to be the most decisive company.
All other principles feed into the main one. It’s the pillar at the center of everything.
When there are opposing views, the right thing is to do the one that aligns the most with the single principle
“You make money when you sell things—why would you allow negative reviews on your website?” Speaking as a focus group of one, I know I’ve sometimes changed my mind before making purchases on Amazon.com as a result of negative or lukewarm customer reviews. Though negative reviews cost us some sales in the short term, helping customers make better purchase decisions ultimately pays off for the company.
- 2003 letter to shareholders