My career journey at Amazon has come to a close after a short two-year run. Between S3 and SageMaker, I got to work on systems at a scale I had never experienced before, learn from some very strong engineers, and figure out a lot about how I want to approach work going forward.
Here are three lessons I’m taking with me.
1. Stay curious
Throughout my time on S3 and SageMaker, I got to work on production systems that directly impact real-world customers. This ranged from learning about the storage designs and techniques S3 uses to serve millions of CRUD requests per second, to provisioning resources with EKS for third-party MLOps workloads, to supporting evaluation workflows across private and public models. With systems this complex, I naturally had a lot of questions.
Over time, I realized that curiosity was one of the biggest things that helped me grow as an engineer. Instead of stopping at “How does this work?”, I started asking “Why was it designed this way?”, “What tradeoffs were made?”, and “What would happen if we chose a different approach?”
That pushed me to dive deeper into existing systems, understand the reasoning behind technical decisions, and think more carefully about the pros and cons of different designs. Technical knowledge tells you what is possible. Technical taste comes from understanding why good engineers make the choices they do.
2. Don’t be an asshole
During my time at Amazon, I also experienced unpleasant parts of working in big tech: office politics, cliques, gatekeeping, people protecting their own interests, and sometimes people just treating each other poorly. My takeaway is pretty simple: treat people the way you would want to be treated.
If someone asks for help and you can help them, help them. Share what you know. Give people credit for their work. Don’t make someone else’s job harder just because you can. At the same time, being nice does not mean being a pushover. There is a stark difference between being kind and avoiding conflict at all costs. If someone crosses a boundary, takes credit for your work, blocks you unfairly, or treats you poorly, you should always stand up for yourself. Be someone people enjoy working with, but know when to stand your ground.
3. Work smart
Working harder does not always mean getting more done. Sometimes the better question is how to get the same result with less manual effort. A lot of our work is repetitive, so when I see a pattern repeat, I ask: can this be automated? Maybe with an ops tool, an AI skill, or a dedicated agent.
Working smart also means knowing how to manage your time. I learned this the hard way after burning myself out while juggling on-call pages, project deadlines, recruiting, and side projects at the same time. When there is always more work to do, it becomes easy to let work consume every hour you have. What helped me was putting clear boundaries around my time. I start with the things I consider non-negotiable, such as sleep, eating, exercising, and time to rest, and plan everything else around them. This forces me to prioritize what needs to get done instead of trying to fit everything into one day. Time is limited. Automate what you can, prioritize what matters, and set boundaries around the rest.
Extremely grateful for my time at Amazon and for all the people I got to learn from along the way. Special shoutout to my manager and teammates. I’m excited for what’s next.