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The thing I learned from Amazon's senior principals is that actually it's good and normal to turn red in the face and scream at your junior colleagues that they're fucking idiots when they have the temerity to politely disagree with you.




They get it from senior management, and pass it down like generational trauma. This was a problem even in 2013 when I worked there. Once, I was new and actually pushed back against a Director level person's poor behavior in a 70 person meeting, because I didn't know better. I was approached by multiple individuals afterwards telling me how "brave" it was of me.

At Amazon, unkind and downright unprofessional behavior by people higher up the chain is normalized, and has been for a very long time.


shit runs downhill

There’s a reason Bezos decided to bulk up. Gonna need some of that when people decide to throw hands at all hands.

Some people might take your comment as a joke or exaggeration, but I can confidently say that the worst coworkers I've had by far were all ex-Amazon.

I've never worked directly for Amazon, but for a consultancy that was an AWS Partner.

I got an invite to a team skip level meeting once, and holy shit I could not believe the asshole and bullshit crap those seniors were tossing at each other, at the Partner manager, and also us.


The lesson you learn is that screaming is a one-way street, can be done only in one direction of the org chart.

A junior engineer embarrassing a senior principal is a big no no.


Asserting your dominance is part of the leadership /s



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