Many Amazon software engineers have always been very dissatisfied with the company's formalist culture.
And in recent years, Amazon seems to have gradually lost its original innovation advantages. Many executives who were responsible for the early development of the company have left and went to small startups or competitors. Employees call this "unknown change" stage "Day 2" (corresponding to the rapid development of entrepreneurship stage, called "Day 1").
To solve these problems, Amazon created a brand new team in early 2022 - "Amazon Software Builder Experience". The goal of the team is very clear, which is to promise to build Amazon into the best company for software engineers in the world!
Since the establishment of the ASBX team at the beginning of this year, more than 400 members have been developed, and they are committed to code automation, improving developer tools, improving tutorial training, and security infrastructure.
An internal Amazon document pointed out: "The ASBX team was established to improve the work experience of Amazon software engineers. Their appeals are summarized from the pain points we have reported in our work, including: how to manage and deploy code in daily life, the usability of operation tools, and how to better carry out company activities, etc.."
When talking about Amazon engineers' dissatisfaction with the company, the recent ASBX team shared in DevCon (the largest engineer activity within Amazon) speech is very sharp and thorough.
An Amazon software developer said: " works as an engineer at Amazon, and is more about 'daily clicking buttons' than about developing. " Daily software upgrades, manual testing and deployment, and difficult-to-use developer tools make engineers unable to engage in more innovative development work. makes Amazon engineers' frustration become stronger and stronger.
Why do Amazon software engineers complain that their work is not innovative? This has to be attributed to those "Undifferentiated Work"
The so-called "undifferentiated work" can be understood as "those work that requires manual operation, extra, repetitive, and takes up a lot of programming time for engineers" (in short, time-consuming, labor-intensive and meaningless work)
A recent internal survey found that 34% of engineers said they spend 4 to 8 hours a week on these "undifferentiated work" or on work that is not related to building new products. Another survey found that engineers spend an average of 30% of their time on “repeating work.”
At an early internal meeting, CEO Andy Jassy said he was aware of the issues and asked two senior technical directors Dave Treadwell and Peter DeSantis to lead the solution. So, this brand new ASBX team is managed by Vice President Eric Docktor and reported to DeSantis.
At present, the ASBX team intends to solve the problem by establishing new tools and training content, and has formulated the following 6 working guidelines:
1. The company's software engineers need to have consistent, actionable and scalable tools to build and run applications on our unique scale. Teams can continue to expand on a holistic approach to meet their specific business needs.
2. Let software engineers spend their time on innovative projects. Eliminate those “undifferentiated jobs”, use automation and integration of opinions, and leave the necessary interactions between people in the most needed work situations.
3. Ensure that our tools can be used even in the worst cases. When other tools cannot be used, we must also ensure that ours can be used.
4. The experience of software engineers represents the tools, processes and technologies that the entire company has.Through clear indicators, practical insights, and shared knowledge can be continuously improved.
5. Ensure Amazon's industry-leading technology and the resources of top experts in many fields provide engineers with opportunities to learn and grow.
6. Integrate Amazon's values into the technical foundation. Cultivate engineers’ sense of belonging by ensuring that our tools, trainings and activities are inclusive and accessible.
A spokesperson for Amazon said: "Maintaining the former 'Day 1' culture means having the courage to listen to our employees, demanding ourselves to the highest standards, and constantly finding new ways to provide better tools and working mechanisms to help our software engineers grow. In some recent activities, such as Builder's Day and DevCon 2022, we can see that our former 'Day 1' culture has recovered and has had a positive impact on engineers."
Have any friends working in linen share with us more of the work day of software engineers and this ASBX team? Do you think this team is useful?
Reference for this article: Insider
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