What I learned from nearly 1,000 interviews at Amazon

What I learned from nearly 1,000 interviews at Amazon
12 minutes by Steve Huynh

Most candidates spend nearly all their prep time on technical skills, but Steve says hiring decisions often come down to how well you present yourself. By the final interview round, companies already know you can do the job. What they want to know is whether they would enjoy working with you. Steve recommends preparing and rehearsing your personal stories, even just for a weekend, because that may matter more than dozens of extra hours of coding practice.

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Don’t let your boss do your job
17 minutes by Kevin Goldsmith

Kevin argues that visible ownership beats silent competence in leadership. When a problem surfaces, he suggests the first move is to signal you're on it, even without a solution yet. Then route it to the right person and verify it gets resolved. If your boss has to step in, the gap is already showing. Nothing in your area should hit the floor.

The protégé problem today
9 minutes by David Hoang

The traditional mentor and student relationship has flipped, as younger workers often know the newest tools better than their seniors. Each generation faces its own version of this tension, from elder millennials bridging old and new, to a squeezed middle stuck between experience and fluency. The common thread is staying open to learning, even when it feels uncomfortable.

Advice to young people
6 minutes by Jason Liu

This post offers personal advice shaped by Jason's experiences, emphasizing choice, responsibility, and self-awareness. He argues that success comes from taking action, building relationships, and maintaining high agency rather than relying on merit alone. Jason highlights the importance of confidence through practice, embracing simplicity, and balancing ambition with well-being.

Finding comfort in the uncertainty
10 minutes by Annie Vella

Nobody has AI adoption figured out yet. Recurring themes included shifting bottlenecks from engineering to decision-making, growing uncertainty about what the core work artifact even is, and serious cognitive overload among those pushing hardest on AI tools. The role of the software engineer is changing fast, but no one has clearly defined what it changes into.

And the most popular article from the last issue was:

• Nobody is coming to save your career