Falling in love with coding again — Many years ago, at an Amazon offsite, we came up with tenets to articulate and perpetuate the guiding values and expectations of Principal Engineers (“PEs”) at Amazon. This is not to be confused with the more well-known Amazon Leadership Principles, which apply to all amazonians. The Amazon Principal Engineering tenets…

Ensuring Availability in AWS back in 2016 — This is the story of when I just had to open my big mouth in front of a Senior VP at Amazon, and the journey that impulsive decision put me on. Charlie Bell was an absolutely legendary figure at Amazon for nearly 24 years. You may have heard of him…

At times I grew exponentially, at other times, glacially — Why? — I was recently lurking on linkedin and noticed one of my favorite Senior Principal Engineers at Amazon had gone from Intern to Senior Principal in a decade. That’s an astonishing growth by all accounts (promoted every two years). For the longest time his work profile photo was from the intern…

There’s an elegance and timelessness to simple designs — A couple of years ago, my wife and I were driving home, and I noticed a red and black vintage Citroën 2CV in a parking lot. I have been told that at that exact moment I made a funny excited shriek. I don’t remember. …

The experience of shattering a glass ceiling — “Are you crazy? Amazon will never promote an SDET to Principal!” said my friend with a dismissive laughter. The year was 2009. I had just started at the company, and I was eager to grow my career. Was I in a dead-end role? A glass ceiling is a metaphor used…

The challenges of bonding with a new company during covid times — My New Year’s Resolution, December 31st 2019, was to leave Amazon, after more than 11 years there. Back then, I just expected it to be a simple job transition. I was blissfuly unaware that in a few months a deadly pandemic would shut down the entire planet. …

How Amazon (the company, not the jungle) imprints their culture — Back in the 60s, neuroscientist Paul MacLean put forth the theory that we all have a reptilian brain: the primitive, instinctual and animalistic part of our brain, controlling all the life-sustaining functions of our body. On top of that, the limbic brain controls the emotional responses, and on top of…

Nobody advances in a vacuum — In my stories, I have been very candid about my childhood in a third world country, coming to America with a suitcase and a hundred bucks without speaking the language, living under the poverty line throughout high school and barely getting through college on scholarships. Yet somehow, against all odds…

Sometimes it takes some courage to be the person that starts a dance party — If you search for Guy starts dance party on YouTube, you’ll find a 3-minute grainy masterpiece of human interaction with 23 million hits. You’re probably wondering: why would 23 million people watch an old pixelated video of a weird guy dancing by himself? Initially, everybody near him ignores him, walks…