Chandrika Vasudevan

I've been at Amazon a long time. When I talk about my career with Amazon, the most frequent questions people ask me are: What kept me with Amazon for so many years? When I left after nearly 14 years, what drew me away? What brought me back 2 years later? The genuine answer to each, as trite as it sounds, is the same: it's the people The people who took a chance on me. The people that, when I struggled, helped me lean on my strengths and shore up my weaknesses. The people who saw potential and invested in me. The people who modeled the value of building relationships, not just building code. The people who challenged me, made me think differently, and helped me grow. As I've grown in my career it's also those people in whom I can see potential and invest, where I might take a chance to give them an opportunity, for whom my experience could be of some value as they grow, and with whom I can continue building lasting relationships. I've been with Amazon's Global Talent Management and Compensation for about a year and a half, where our mission is to help Amazonians build rewarding careers. In that time, I've met with hundreds of people in our org and every single one of them has been driven by our mission and passionate about how we can meaningfully improve the lives of every Amazon employee. I've learned so much about how challenging, rewarding, and important taking a culture-first approach can be. This post isn't a claim that Amazon is objectively unique, I know there are amazing people in every company, though it has been my personal experience that Amazon's intentionally peculiar culture is one that encourages these kinds of behavior in people. Rather, my point is this: To deliver sustained business and customer value, your organization cannot be a feature factory. It needs to be an organizational engine that continuously inspects and adjusts its culture to grow people and relationships, according to your values, and through which you deliver for your customers. #people #relationships #culture #amazon

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Did you know there are no "roles" (SDE, SDET, TPM, …) when you get to L8 IC (Senior Principal) at Amazon? It’s one of Amazon’s peculiarities. [Side note: in general, Amazon SDEs tend to be "jack of all trades" where we pragmatically do whatever is necessary to make our organization successful at that given moment (within reason). In fact, I believe being well-rounded and able and willing to wear a number of hats is one of the things that makes me valuable to an employer. We don’t over-index on "that’s not part of my role doc." Other companies where I worked (eg Google) have very clear swimming lanes and people stick to them pretty religiously, eg. "oh no I don’t talk to customers, I’m an SDE and talking to customers is for TPMs." Whereas at Amazon I never once had a manager tell me, "what you did (although impactful, important and necessary) was not really your job." ] My little side note about this critical piece of amazon culture explains why as you get to L8 the concept of a "role" no longer really makes sense. The boundaries between roles get fuzzier and fuzzier as you go from Senior Engineer (L6) to Principal Engineer (L7), and they become unimportant when you get to L8. We’re all just “Senior Principals” - whether you came via the SDE path, the TPM path, or in my snowflake case, the SDET path. In fact I think most L8s are snowflakes in that their path to L8 was unique and the value they bring to the company is also unique. In phonetool (our amazon directory) you can have whatever unofficial title you want (also within reason...), so I chose to keep the "SDET" title to reflect my background and passion for testing, engineering and operational excellence, and developer tools. I also hope that by keeping the title, others in my (old?) role can see that SDETs at Amazon do not have a "ceiling" in their career. And lastly, it's a fun conversational piece ("you're an L8 SDET???") (The image here is "Peccy" - a beloved little icon that has represented Amazon's Peculiar Ways for years) [Edit: Strictly speaking there are a few L8 IC roles that do have a different job code, like PMT or Scientist - but I think we generally view all L8 ICs in the same lens]

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📣 Calling all PMs in my network! Recently completed one of the best courses led by Shreyas Doshi. Unlike many product training programs, this course shifts focus from frameworks to changing your product mindset, applicable regardless of company size or product type. I highly recommend this transformative experience! 🤔 🙌 Gratitude to Shreyas Doshi and all my fellow classmates for a fantastic week of learning. #product #productmanagement

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💡3 𝐌𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬 – 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 Anyone who's ever worked at Amazon can tell you that delivering results is one of the most important leadership principles! But, it goes beyond just meeting deadlines. In this video, I debunk 3 myths about delivering results at top tech companies and share some practical tips on how to truly deliver impactful results. 📌 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫: - Why working more hours isn’t the answer. - The role teamwork plays in getting things done. - How embracing failure can actually boost your career. 🔥 Bonus: Understand why tech companies prefer incremental deliveries over big-bang projects. Watch on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gyqkjJGv 🎥 Watch the entire video series on Corporate Career Insights for more such observations and practical tips on navigating your tech careers: https://lnkd.in/g2KizS7W #ITCareers #DeliverResults #WorkSmart #TechIndustry #CareerGrowth #ProductivityHacks #Teamwork #PersonalDevelopment

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My Journey to Securing 7 Offers for Management and IC Roles Across FAANG and Startups I’ve been considering opportunities beyond Amazon since 2020, but I was fortunate to be offered enriching experiences year after year, which kept me from making the leap. By early 2024, after laying the foundations for AWS App Studio, I decided to explore other roles within #Amazon. However, I realized that Amazon’s presence in the Bay Area was shrinking, and with its #RTO policies, the management opportunities in #bayarea were limited to just a few roles, none of which aligned with my interests and goals. A combination of limited internal opportunities, and changes in Amazon culture and policies, motivated me to explore external options. Initially, I had two interviews with a FAANG company and a startup, but I failed them miserably. Securing new interviews proved difficult due to factors like scarce roles, high competition, and increasing expectations in both technical and people-management skills. I quickly realized I needed to make every interview count by preparing more methodically and strategically. In a future post, I’ll dive into how I: a) Adjusted my job search to land new interviews consistently b) Staggered my interview timeline to maximize preparedness and increase the likelihood of receiving multiple offers c) Prepped for technical skills, as many companies now expect managers to be as technically competent as senior engineers I also decided to interview for individual contributor (IC) roles for several reasons: a) I’m still hands-on with my side projects b) Companies are reducing management layers c) I enjoy both IC and management roles d) Compensation for ICs at some companies can be higher than for managers at others e) Since I was preparing for technical interviews anyway, I figured I might as well explore IC opportunities too I segmented my job search into four categories: Startup/FAANG and IC/Management, staggering my applications to focus on startups first and then #FAANG. This approach created an avalanche effect: I started receiving IC and management offers from startups, followed by multiple FAANG offers across both IC and management roles. Here are the benefits of this approach: a) I was able to fairly evaluate startup opportunities without bias toward cash components. One startup came close to winning me over, but by that point, I had FAANG offers and ultimately decided to pursue those. b) I gave myself a chance to objectively reconsider an IC role, as I’m still mid-career c) I ensured that for any managerial role I considered, the company culture and its policies aligned well with my values. d) This approach helped me negotiate effectively and secure a top-of-market compensation package. e) I was at my best in the final interviews (both FAANG and startups) after having multiple real-world practice sessions with other companies.

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Amazon-to-Google-to-Amazon #a2g2a thought of the day: The Intensity, oh, the Intensity!!! When I went from Amazon to Google, it felt like I had just gotten off the freeway and was driving on a side street. At the time, I couldn’t quite disentangle whether the slowdown was because this was June of 2020 and covid had turned the entire world upside down or because it was a deeper part of the DNA of the company. Now that I’m back at Amazon, I feel like I was indeed driving on a side street for a while and now I’m accelerating onto the freeway onramp once again. There’s most definitely a difference in intensity between the cultures. Intensity by itself is neither good nor bad, but it depends on the context. As covid shut down the world, I appreciated Google’s emphasis on their employees well-being. In 2020, googlers received a generous 14 weeks of additional time off, fully paid, to be used any way we needed given the extraordinary world circumstances. I had two boys that we were now suddenly homeschooling, so I very much appreciated the benefit. The other side of that is that at times I wanted to step on the gas and it was quite hard. You can’t single-handedly do that, you need people around you to be as excited as you are and to follow you on the journey. Working backwards from firm dates is a bit of a foreign concept to Google and it’s table stakes at Amazon. "Intensity" is NOT necessarily the same thing as "working long hours" (although it is often confused). I have a family and my time with them is very important to me. It's about what you do with the hours that you do spend at work. The last few weeks, the intensity has been healthy. I’ve felt more alive. It’s energizing. I see the freeway up ahead and the adrenaline is beginning to kick in again!

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Deepak Krishnan post on clearly demonstrates what’s wrong with promotion first mentality Post for your folks 🤔Associate Product Manager To Chief Product Officer - Mindset Over Time.🤔 APM - My very first product is going to make billions for my company and I will be promoted in the next 6 months. Maybe even a double promotion! PM - If only my designers, developers and business counterparts listened to me, our products would be successful and I could be senior PM by now. Senior PM - My senior management has no clue what to build. If I were senior management I would have made this company so successful. Group PM - Aargh the PMs reporting to me think they are Steve Jobs. My Senior Leadership think they are Steve Jobs. And yet nothing we ship makes any impact. I am making only PPTs, fighting fires and taking the blame for everyone’s screw up. Director Of Products - I get the game now. It’s not about the how I build products. It’s about making products optically successful, managing more products and people & keeping my senior leadership happy. Senior Director Of Products - How do I take control of the new and important charters coming up and make sure X and Y don’t get it so that I have the best optics. VP of Products - When will my CPO move on to the next company so I can become CPO. CPO - Time to start applying for CEO roles in other companies. My CEO ain’t moving any time soon. 😄This is just a humorous take on us product managers.😄 #productmanagement #productmanager

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Some great tips for your next interview 👇 #amazoninterviewing #amazon #jobs #interviewtips

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Nothing hurts career growth for talented Product Managers other than over-indexing on the immediate next job move as the only important thing for career advancement. Here is how to avoid this short term thinking trap and build a career plan for meaningful career success : Step 1️⃣: Envision what you want to achieve and create your career roadmap - Think your career as a product and have a long term vision - Think roles/titles/scope you want to have in long term - Identify what PM skills you need to succeed in that role - Work backwards to reverse engineer your plan to learn those skills - Have clear short term milestones to monitor progress - Identify companies which can help you build that skill set - Identify mentors/coaches/courses/books which can fast track your learning - Plan for scenarios in case a role/company is not a good fit (eg when will you quit and what will you do next) Step 2️⃣: Find right roles as per your plan and build your reputation - Go after the role you want to start with as per your plan (always pick companies with higher growth and higher odds of success when having multiple offers) - Improve your strategy, execution, influence and communication skills as you grow - Work extremely hard and deliver strong outcomes via your product work - As you progress understand what are your strengths and liabilities - Go deep on your strengths and build your reputation around it - Work on your liabilities to bring them to median level of proficiency - Understand what environmental parameters help you thrive eg extent of manager support, fast vs slow paced environment, processes vs autonomy etc - Annually assess how close/far-off you are wrt to your short term milestones - In case you see gaps, transition to new role/company basis the extent to which things can be fixed in your current role Step 3️⃣: Learn how to be lucky than solely relying on hard work - Create your advisor council to share your journey and seek inputs - Contribute to the community of PMs to organically build you network - Support others(within/outside your team) in their career growth - Work hard to find your sponsors within and outside your company - Always give more than you seek #productmanagement #pmcareergrowth

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To all Product Managers - How do you measure the quality of your PRD? . . I consider 2 things to measure the quality of my PRDs: [1] How many times did developers reach out to me for clarification during the development phase? (consider the clarifications not mentioned in the PRD) [2] How many improvements areas/fixes did I identify during PAT? (that could have been avoided by writing details in the PRD itself) PRD is supposed to make developers self-reliant and provide them clarity on as many possible cases as possible. If they have to come back to you every now and then, you (as a PM) are not doing justice to your work. This will waste more time than the time you will save by not writing PRD. How do you evaluate the quality of your PRD? Mention in the comments below. #ProductManagers #ProductManagement #Developers

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The product lifecycle is like a Bollywood movie: Starts with a bang, full of drama in the middle (bugs!), and ends with everyone wondering if there will be a sequel (new version) or if it's just a one-hit wonder. #productmanagerlife #productmanagement #productmanager #agile #productowner #officehumor #worklifebalance #softwareengineeringhumor #uxhumor #customercentric #productlifecycle #productlaunch #bugs #productdevelopment #newversion #bollywood #softwareengineeringhumor #productmanagerlife

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Call it the job market or more number of folks planning to move to product management. Lately, I've been getting quite a few DMs from people asking for advice on their product management journeys. It's honestly been both humbling and inspiring! That's why I've decided to start coaching on Topmate. Whether you're... ...trying to figure out how to land your first PM role ...wanting to sharpen your product development skills ...just needing another PM to brainstorm with ...I'm happy to chat. I want to share what I've learned – both the wins and the mistakes – and help you navigate your own path. Interested in connecting? Schedule a time here: https://lnkd.in/du32txYE And even if you don't want a formal session, feel free to reach out! I love connecting with this community. #ProductManagement #CareerMentorship #Topmate #ProfessionalGrowth

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During my three years as a Software Developer at Amazon, I experienced firsthand how deeply ingrained the Operational Excellence (OE) culture is in our daily operations. This culture isn't just about maintaining high standards—it's about continuous improvement and proactive problem-solving. Here are some intriguing insights from my time at Amazon: 🔍 Weekly OE Meetings: Every Monday morning, our team gathered to review key performance metrics, including service availability and response times. These meetings were crucial for identifying trends and swiftly addressing any issues from the previous week. It was fascinating to see how structured these discussions were, ensuring that everyone was aligned and focused on improvement. ⏲️ On-Call Responsibilities: One unique aspect of Amazon’s OE culture is the rotating on-call duty. Each week, a different software engineer would be the primary responder for high-severity issues, using tools like PagerDuty to manage alerts. This rotation not only ensured that issues were addressed promptly but also fostered a sense of shared responsibility among the team. 📊 Key Metrics: We closely monitored critical metrics such as the 99th and 99.9th percentiles of service response times and aimed for zero error rates. Tracking both system errors and dependency errors helped us pinpoint problems accurately and resolve them efficiently. The emphasis on these metrics underscored Amazon's commitment to reliability and performance. 🛠️ Root Cause Analysis (RCA): Conducting RCAs for every significant issue was a game-changer. It was not just about fixing the problem at hand but understanding the underlying cause to prevent future occurrences. This process was essential for maintaining long-term stability and continuous improvement. 💡 Continuous Improvement: One of the most inspiring aspects of Amazon’s OE culture is the constant drive for improvement. Feedback was encouraged from all team members, and processes were regularly updated based on lessons learned. This iterative approach ensured that we were always moving forward, adapting to new challenges, and enhancing our operations. I've detailed these insights and more in an article I recently wrote on Substack. If you're interested in learning more about Amazon’s OE practices and how you can implement similar strategies in your own organisation, check out the full article(first link in the comments). Connect on LinkedIn: Dipak A.

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Ok, so I get a lot of people asking how to setup custom, secure, safe, “ChatGPT Like” tools with access to proprietary information. In the procurement world this could be Spending and Transaction Policies, Delegations of authority, spend thresholds or any other or a myriad SOP’s. It can even be highly detailed category specific knowledge that you you want to surface to specific individuals. Now you can with #AmazonQ. Whether it’s straight for q&a or more advanced clause extraxtion, it’s all available right now. It’s easy to setup, super safe and secure and empowers procurement teams like nothing else! If you want to know how to get the most out of Generative AI tools in procurement (whether it’s a RAG like solution like this or something else) ping me and I will be glad to share my experiences! The world is changing procurement folk… let’s make sure we change with it! #aws, #amazon, #llm, #chatgpt, #innovation, #procurement, #generativeAI

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Product management is like being a Bollywood director. You gotta write the script, pick the perfect cast, and make sure the movie leaves everyone saying 'Paisa vasool!' Product gets the box office success, the actors get the fame...well, maybe next film! #productmanagement #productmanager #productstrategy #madeinindia #indianstartups #marketingchai #uxindia #productfun #pmlife #humor #productmemes

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Last week, I had the privilege of learning from THE Shreyas Doshi in the Product Sense course! It was more than a deep dive into product management; it was about debunking years of myths, challenging assumptions, sparking creativity, and pushing beyond the obvious to understand users and businesses. It was intense, it was challenging, and it was ENLIGHTENING ! I find myself revisiting the lessons as I work to put my learning into practice. This course is a treasure of learnings and I'd highly recommend it to all experienced PMs, founders and leaders.

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Exciting news! Our team has released a new feature that I'm thrilled to share with you all. Auto-Association is now available to help our customers connect their data to our AWS Supply Chain Data Lake. Thanks to Generative AI, powered by Amazon Bedrock, we can read a variety of source data and automatically build the SQL transformation recipes needed to convert this data into our canonical data model. I'm particularly proud of this feature and want to extend a special thanks to my manager, Jyothi Bodas, for leading the project. If you're interested in learning more about Auto-Association, check out the demo video Jyothi created. I want to thank the entire team for producing such an awesome feature for our customers! Alok Mehta, Asim Joshi, Christie Molloy, Colin Ashfield, Leonardo Murri, Michael Walsh, Parshant Chowdhary, Shalini Thinderu,Tom Nolan, Vita Grebeniuk and the host of other team members that made this happen. I also want to send out a thanks to our leaders- Ameet Vaswani, Diego Pantoja-Navajas, Dilip Kumar, Alex Dunlap, and to our Customer Success team led by Tariq Choudry. #aws #amazon #amazonbedrock #AWSSupplyChain #day1

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When you say your product has Product Market Fit, it means your product has achieved PMF for specific segments of users, not everyone which you consider as your potential user. PMF is always segment specific, it is never generic. So next time you want to grow your product, understand which set of customers loved your product initially and find similar customers who have similar needs.

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There are three different types of manager of managers. Single threaded, multi threaded and portfolio. To be successful it is really important to know which type the situation demands.   A single threaded manager of managers is wholly dedicated to one business problem which requires the collaboration of multiple teams who are exclusively dedicated to that exact problem. The manager is directly accountable for the results in the one business area and therefore the success of the teams. Despite being responsible for multiple managers and teams there is very little context switching as there is high cohesion between them. A multi threaded leader has the same responsibilities as a single threaded leader except the teams do not have a single business problem in common. This results in a degree of context switching as each team's domain and challenges will be very different. A portfolio leader is completely different. They are not responsible for the success of any individual team or teams. They are accountable for the portfolio of business problems and its overall performance. They are responsible for making decisions around priorities, risks, investments and resource and talent allocation. They are also responsible for the operating infrastructure which supports the overall portfolio. This is a real systems thinking role. One place I personally have struggled and seen other managers of managers struggle is knowing which situation you are in and adapting style. One way I explain this is "are you managing Manchester United or are you managing The Football Association?". This also works for Goldman Sachs vs The Federal Reserve or making the next Star Wars movie vs Disney. The leadership approaches are completely different. Managing a football team is about choosing players, formation, tactics etc. Managing the FA is about widths of goal posts, video assistant referee, season lengths, scoring etc. One cares about winning the game the other cares about the overall success of the game itself. In fact the FA doesn't care which team wins or loses as it is totally irrelevant to their responsibilities. The same is true for leaders of Disney. They care about the overall success of Disney and ensuring that the right support and infrastructure is available to entertainment makers to bring in audiences and make money. They aren't personally invested in the success of individual movies or shows as long as the portfolio as a whole performs well. And nothing is ever neat and tidy. Managers of managers might find themselves having to take on a combination of these all at once. Start by understanding which one you are in. Because taking the wrong approach in the wrong situation will lead to problems and even burnout for the leader and their teams. #leadership #management #situationalawareness

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