Amazon SDMs: what’s Advice you wish you knew before you started
Sep 6
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Starting as an SDM soon @ amazon
seasoned and successful SDMs: what good advice , stragety, surivial advice you wish tou knew before you started ?
TC:~440k
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Learn how to be genuinely focused on enhancing others careers
Learn how to give up your engineering (it’s hard. You will have withdrawal symptoms)
Learn how to unite your team so they are stronger together
Learn how to choose the right battles that you can win.
Be close to tech leads and PEs so they trust you
Learn to talk about technical topics in full detail or at high level depending upon audience
Learn how to manage top performers so they are always winning
Learn how to manage bottom performers so they are not slacking
Learn to play politics with other SDMs who want to take away your credit
Learn how to be visible whenever there is an opportunity
Learn to listen and help remove hurdles
Trust others but keep verifying randomly
Document. Document. Document
Remember if it’s not being measured or tracked, it’s not gonna meet the deadline
Every thing tends to fail and everyone has seemingly valid excuse why it’s not their fault. You need to make it happen.
Appreciate whenever it’s justified. It’s not about you. It’s about others
Learn when to micromanage and when not to
1. Listen to your directs. They don’t work for you, you work for them. (Many managers forget this).
2. Don’t micromanage. Unlike Microsoft, managers should not be prescriptive about the how. Bottom up rather than top down.
3. Pay attention to your connection results and be transparent with your team.
4. Eat live and breath LPs
5. Work on your writing skills, ditch the PowerPoint and the weasel words.