How does the promotion process in Amazon works? i am specifically looking for process, tips and typical duration to go from L6 to L7 and L8. A fee i spoke to said that there is a lot of paper work invokved and support from peers and other L7/8 from partner teams. TIA. #Amazon #promotion
I did L5 to L6 in 2.5 years ... the .5 years mainly cause I was lazy. There was an impending process change — instead of writing your own promo doc, for L6 and up manager is now supposed to write the doc, and the engineer need only provide what they called “work summaries”. The change was supposed to kick in in 2019, but my manager forced me drop all sprint tasks and write my own doc. I enlisted my program manager (a veteran at writing docs in Amazon) for help.
Sorry .. just realised you were looking for 6+
Generally 6 -> 7 you need minimum 5 L7's support and 2 L8's. Those don't include manager and your director.
First, realize that promo from L6 to L7 is not at all a fair or objective process. You need alignment from your entire reporting chain all the way up to your VP before you attempt to get promoted. If you have that, rest is a formality. You need support from few L7s and couple L8s. Don’t get any random L8s. You need heavyweight L8s. I have seen cases where even after 5 L8s supported a candidate, the promo did not go through because those L8s were considered lightweight. If a promo does not happen, you will get a whole bunch of BS reasons. You need to find out the real reason, which usually is some asswipe in the room who has an axe to grind against you or your leadership. Since your immediate manager may not be in all the meetings where your promo was discussed, you will have to hit your entire chain to get feedback. Good luck.
This 👆🏼👆🏼 It’s all about the “support” you have (read: “ensure you have kissed the right ass”) from L8’s and the rest is all a formality. I would say it’s more 2 x L7 and 4 x L8 sign off. L7 is, for the most part, about the people management / handling politics from L8/10+ so more emphasis would be placed on how strategic your relationships are as opposed to what you have delivered. It’s a longer process for sure vs L4>L5 or L5>L6
Thanks both. I have realized getting promoted at any level in any firm requires - ass kissing and anal retention. If I have to put it in corporate jargon I need to get the right relationship and due diligence. I work for a finance company and it is not that different and getting from a ED to MD requires sponsors and supporters from multiple lines of business. But also they provide training and the process is a little clearer. Once one make a initial list they will be eligible for the leadership training program and usually it will take anywhere from 2-8 year for one to get a promotion. And many leave within that period in frustration. Are there any such filtering process and is there an ‘list’ that one need to get into to be considered a potential promotion candidate. Also one more advantage in the MD promotion at JPM once the candidate gets a strong recommendation / sponsorship at their lines of businesses, the recommendation s from other lines of businesses is just an additional endorsement. Please add your thoughts around it and what kind of grooming could we expect?! thx!
How does L6->L7 promotion differ for an SDM compared to an IC ? Equally difficult for both ?
Is the process any different at AWS? Particularly BD, SA, etc.? There are barely any L8s in the orgs, how are we expected to get that level of buy in?
Incredibly hard, very thorough. 6-7 is initially reviewed by local director before reviewed by director staff of other orgs. Prior to that there is a large effort review of contributions and technical work by a couple of other PEs.