Amazon

As an engineering manager in Amazon AppStore, I work on defining and executing the strategy and roadmap of my business. I lead a team of 10+ amazing engineers who work backwards from customer problems. We build scalable solutions using cutting-edge tools from AWS services, Machine learning, and Generative AI. Our products have reduced the time taken in application testing by 5 times using machine learning-based solutions. 
As a manager, I have coached 100+ engineers in their career development and built a strong team of problem-solving, self-driven individuals.

Software Development Manager

Leading the engineering team, that powers the backend of the Product Details page of Amazon shopping site worldwide, top 10 visited page on internet.

Self

Investor

Goldman Sachs

Leadership | Hiring & Mentoring | Big Data | Data pipeline

Designed and managed a team for strategic rebuilt of conflict management system to support the new advanced nature of business with futuristic tech stack using Elasticsearch, microservices & Angular etc. It uses event sourcing in UI to create a reactive front end using RxJS.

Architected & managed a team to optimize the rule based tagging to highlight potential risks related to deals using event driven architecture. This improved the existing rule based system and reduced the noise by 80%.

Managed a team to create a self-service reporting dashboard using Elasticsearch & Angular.  This product saved 208 business days/year for business.

Executed a learning and training program for Legal, Compliance and Audit business unit by Chairing learning and training committee. This committee delivered 500+ person hours of training and mentorship

Vice President

Web & Mobile | Event Sourcing | Mentoring | Training 

Managed a team of interns to create a product for automating various manual approval processes by leveraging JBPM & microservices using RESTful architecture. This system currently hosts 100+ business processes and over 1M unique instances of those processes.

Influenced the business to get funding for a project by implementing a system showcasing how emails can be connected with the application to track the conversation which led to a decision for a deal.

Applied Event sourcing with RabbitMQ and ElasticSearch in implementing a data pipeline for conflict management system so that users can execute searches & reports in near real time.

Led & designed a workflow to document the decision taken during conflict approval process. Further improved the workflow by extending it to junior users, without compromising the risk associated with approval. This led to 70% faster issue approvals.

Associate Programmer

Analyst programmer

Accenture

Web | Enterprise Application Development | Agile | TDD 

Reduced the coding time by 20% by creating a reusable UI component using Google Web Toolkit, leading to a 70% reduction in coding time in similar requirements. 

Redesigned the architecture of a GWT based page, which lead to 70% less defects.

Automated the copy/paste of Review comments from word file to an excel file using POI library, leading to a 100% reduction in developer’s time.

Performed the role of Subject Matter Expert for GWT and Selenium testing tool in Accenture.

Created a team to organize technical sessions and discussions for the project, leading to a decline of 30% questions/doubts from the new joiners and other team members.

Senior Programmer

Favworks

Application Developer | Customer Relationship Management Tool | Billing Tools 

Reduced the time taken in organizing the company’s billing/client/project information by 80% by developing a Billing Software, which was later launched as one of the company’s product.

Developed a CRM and Social Network from scratch using PHP, MySql and JQuery.

Software Engineer

I help in skyrocketing 🚀 your career & finances | Engineering Manager @ Amazon | Ex GS | IIMK | Career coach | Personal finance coach

4 years before I got demoted from leading a team of 15 engineers to 1 engineer.

I doubted myself, if I am good at leading teams or not.

My managers, colleagues (𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺) told me to stop leading the team.

Then one day without any agenda, I called my ex-manager, who then had moved to Amazon.

We spoke for an hour. He reminded me of my work and abilities when he used to be my manager.

He told me what matters in career and how I was in a wrong place at a wrong time

We then met again, but this time with agenda of exactly what I needed to do, to crack Amazon interview.

I applied, and cracked the interview in the very first attempt.

And after joining Amazon, I already got promoted once.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘳.

Which taught me 3 very important lessons.

# 1
You are given one life.
Don't spoil it because of being in wrong place.

# 2
Be closer to those who motivate & mentor you.
Avoid everyone else.

# 3
Learning is the only thing that doesn't change.
Rest all is temporary.

In last 5 months I spoke to 50+ of you from LinkedIn. 

In those meetings, I realised there are many in the same place where I was 4 years ago.

It is the state of "self doubt", "constant confusion", "frustration". 

This state not only stops your career growth but also kills your personal life. 

Thats why I made it my mission to help software professionals in achieving their true career potential and  live fulfilling life.

I do it in 2 ways.

[1] By coaching on how to crack Big tech FAANG+ interviews (behavioural)  
[2] By coaching on how to get promoted (career growth).


I do it by sharing result and action oriented "systems" and "frameworks".  

These are proven frameworks that I have developed for myself & learned from others. 


Follow me (and press bell icon) for getting these systems and frameworks.

If you want advise or coaching for your unique situation, DM me "COACH"

Today, I completed 3 years in Amazon. 

Here is a snapshot of my 3 years with 3 lessons, one from each year.

𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 # 𝟭

First highlight of this year was learning about Amazon, It’s leadership principle, and its culture.

And the second one was leading the Diwali, Black Friday, Cyber Monday Sale for the product detail page of my favourite online shopping destination.

This was the first year, where I was not just ordering during Diwali, but was also helping my customers in placing the orders.

I learned more about management and scale in that 1 year in comparison to my last 3 years.

The leadership principle I resonated the most in the first year was learn and be curious

Lesson from year 1: 

Learn the culture before applying your core skills for which you are hired.  

𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 # 𝟮

This year, I started working in Amazon AppStore org. 

Key highlight of this year was the launch of 2 initiatives.

First one was to reduce the latency of an application by 96%. 

Second one was to launch 2 solutions, including one ML model to increase automation. 

This amazing team was trying to launch a product before I joined the team, but that was getting delayed due to requirements changes and operational load. 

So team needed to earn the trust of management by showing business deliveries. 

This year made me learn and exercise relentless prioritisation through 1 way, 2 way door decision making, popularised by Jeff Bezos. 

Two leadership principles, I resonated the most, were earn trust and bias for action

Lesson from year 2: 

Speed matters in business. 
Today’s problems are tomorrow’s past problems. 
Solve them when they are still the problems. 

𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 # 𝟯

Having won trust of senior management allowed my team to take bigger goals. 

Which indirectly translated into interesting problem statements to solve and career growth for team members. 

My team increased the automation from 7% to 40%, a huge win for business and our customers. 

We increased the scope of our latency reduction product to cater more use cases. 

Leadership principles I resonated the most were, hire and develop the best, and deliver results. 

Lesson from year 3: 

Delivery is the stamp on your team’s worth. 
If you can’t deliver your fancy architecture, better not build it. 


My management recognised the efforts and contributions of the team and trusted us to take a more audacious goal of increasing the automation from 40% to 80% in fourth (current) year. 

A manager's success is never an individual success. It is the success of his team and its members. 

So, while I embark on my fourth year, I want to thank the team for delivering results for our customers and my management for showing trust in us.

Chandra Shekhar Joshi

How do I become irreplaceable engineer in my company? 

My answer to this is, you cannot.

Irrespective of, if you believe it or not.

When CEOs or founders can be replaced, then why can’t you?

There were instances in my engineering career when I thought the organisation will suffer if someone very senior in that org will leave. 

Some of those left, some were let go. New folks joined. 

Nothing bad happened. It worked just fine. 

This shattered my illusions of irreplaceability.  

The reason why sometimes you feel that you are irreplaceable because you think, that you are more important than what you really are. 

So why can’t you be irreplaceable?

Because of the way organisations are run.

You always work in a team set up in your org.

This means your teammates have similar skills as you. 

Even if they don’t, they can be trained on those skills.

The reason why companies do this, is to ensure their business continuity.

Because if you leave tomorrow, there is someone else who can do your job.

And that is why you need to be a team person.

So what is Solution?

Should you become a non-team person?

No, that won’t work because you are measured on this soft skill. 

Should you stop sharing knowledge?

Well, that will also not work because then you won’t be able to influence others.

And if you can’t influence others, then you will not get promoted.

So is there any solution?

Yes, there is one and I call it be resumeable.

It means you need to check every quarter how many skills you are able to add to resume.

And if the answer is greater than zero, that means you are actually becoming resumeable.

If it is zero, that means you are not.

Does it help you in becoming irreplaceable in your company? NO.

Does it help you in becoming irreplaceable in your industry? YES.

And this is what you would want to be.

Because even if you are replaced in your company, you won't be replaced in your industry because you have skills on your resume which are valued by similar other companies in your industry. 

So instead of trying to become irreplaceable, be resumeable.

How many skills you usually add to your resume every quarter? 

How I successfully transitioned to engineering management 6 years ago without being lucky?

Here is the 4 step process.

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 # 𝟭:

I ensured the timely delivery of the projects my team was working on.  

Earlier, I was only responsible for the project I was leading, designing, and coding. 

But now I was responsible for all the projects of my team.

Before becoming EM I had already shown that I can successfully deliver the projects I was leading. 

So this was the bare minimum expectation my manager had when I became new EM.

Delivery will be your most important KPI in your first few months. 

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 # 𝟮:

I started knowing my team members. 

Those same catchups for which sometimes I didn't have anything to discuss with my manager, now were my KPI.

Knowing my team members doesn't mean knowing their names or what they like eating. 

It means knowing their strength and areas of growth.

If you notice, this skill has no similarly with any of the skills I had as SDE.

So, I needed to put efforts in building this skill.

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 # 𝟯:

I stopped fixing code issues myself, thinking I can do it faster than my team.

Of course I can do it faster, because I had worked as SDE in that team for a long time. 

But If I would have continued doing this, my team would have never learnt. 

So, stop thinking you are helping them by doing it. 

In fact it is quite opposite. You are making them handicapped by doing this. 

You need to get out to this habit. 

This is the area all new EMs struggle, including myself for sometime.

So when a new EM ask me for a single advice, this is what I tell them.

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 # 𝟰:

The only way my team will learn is by trying, failing, and finally succeeding. 

This is an extension of step # 3 and step # 2.

This is super important, because while I stood up for my team when needed the most, but I shouldn't protect them from making failures and learning from them. 

Because your team is not your family, and parents do the job of protecting family.

Think of your team as a highly professional, and competitive sports team. 

It will play the games, some will be won and some will be lost.

It will learn from losing games and implement the learnings next time.

All the players will be rewarded based on their performance in the games. 

So in order for your team to learn, you need to analyse the stakes and let your team try, fail and succeed. 

This is the only way humans learn. 


Skills needed in management are very different than the skills needed as individual contributor. 

Cherry of top is every situation is different than the previous one, because humans and their emotions are unique. 

While knowing technology is very helpful as manager, but that is not your most important KPI. 

Check how many tech executives in your company are from tech background or actively coding. 

I made my share of mistakes, and was helped by some of the great managers I know.

If you need help as new engineering manager, DM me COACH.

How I don’t deviate while writing a LinkedIn post.

Irrespective of what the current trend is going on. 

Steal this 3 step process.

# 1 

I have defined my purpose of writing on LinkedIn. 

It helps me in being 100% intentional with what I write.  

If a trend is not aligned with my purpose, I don’t trendjack it, which is the case with 99.99% of the trends. 

Purposeless writing a like a drunk man. It can fall anywhere. 

# 2

I have defined my content pillars. 

Content pillars are the topics I write about. 

Here are some of them: 

- Gen AI 
- Career growth 
- Behavioural interviews 
- Personal brand for engineers

Each idea gets tagged with one of these. 

If I can't tag an idea with them, I will never write it.

They help me in being disciplined with my writing. 

# 3 

Every time I complete a piece, I ask these 2 questions to myself. 

- is this advice actionable?
- is this advice immediately applicable?

If the answer is no, I won't post it 99.999% times. 

Because of the first 2 steps, I have only 6 posts in last 6 months, which I never published. 

First 2 steps reduce a lot of wasted efforts. 


Writing is simpler than you think.

If and only if you apply a structured process.

Once you define that structured process for yourself.

You will never feel lost and be amazed by the results. 

Its funny that I never thought of writing about writing.

But it  has  changed  the way I think and work.

I can't think of speaking w/o writing. 

These 3 points are from a session, that I recently took to help some of you in building the writing skill.

If you are an engineer or engineering manager, and are interested in learning writing, DM me COACH. 

Why software engineers get paid more in product based companies in comparison to service based companies?

One line answer :- It's because of the leverage they create. 

Do I mean to say that engineers in service companies create less leverage?

No, not at all. 

If that would be the case, then they will never be able to join product companies.

By the way, this is the part # 2 my leverage series. If you have not read part # 1 , I would highly suggest you to read that. Engineers really loved that post. (all links in comments) 

What I mean to say, is you get paid directly proportional to the amount of leverage you create for your employer.

Note, the most important thing here, after the leverage, is your employer.

Leverage doesn’t have any value on its own.

Its always in the context of someone or something.

As an employee, it earns you money when you apply this in context of your employer.

So let’s take an example.

Suppose you’re working in a service company and your client is an e-commerce company or a bank, which has millions of customers.

Now you create a software solution for your client.

Your client will start having an infinite leverage.

But your employer is still having a finite leverage. 

That’s because the leverage created by your code is ultimately being used by your client, not your employer directly.

And that is the reason you get paid relatively less in service companies. 

Leverage is one of the most powerful mental model, be you are investing in yourself, or in a company.

Let’s say I write a newsletter for 2 dollars a month, it doesn’t increase my work, whether I write for 100 subscribers or 10,000 subscribers.

And when this number increases, my leverage also exponentially increases.

By the way, would you ever be interested in paying 2 dollars a month if I ever start a newsletter where I share this kind of information couple of times in a month?

5 tips to get promoted fast, so that you are not only solving complex problems, but also getting rewarded for solving them.

(based on my 13 years of experience)

1. 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘃𝘀. 𝗣𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹:

- Companies don't promote just for past wins.
- They look at your future impact (potential).
- It's potential that propels you forward.

2. 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗞𝗲𝘆:

- It's not just what you do.
- It's who knows what you do.
- Showcase achievements beyond your team.

3. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗙𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿:

- Technical skills got you here.
- Leadership skills take you higher.
- Lead projects, mentor peers, become force multiplier.

4. 𝗔𝗱𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆:

- Don’t get married to your project
- Show you can adapt and learn.
- It's critical for higher roles.

5. 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆:

- Connections matters more than you think.
- Build relationships across departments.
- They can be your champions.

In my 13 years of career so far:

At Favworks, adaptability was the key.

At Goldman Sachs, I applied network & leadership.

At Amazon, I combine these with continuous learning.


Promotions are more than just hard work.

It is the understanding of the unwritten rules.

Navigate these to watch your career trajectory change.


Anything else would you add to this list?

7 skills behavioural interview questions are trying to assess without actually asking them. 

No 6 is my favourite. 

# 𝟭: 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺-𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 

How effectively the candidate can identify problems, analyze information, and propose solutions.

# 𝟮: 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴

Assessing the ability to make sound decisions under pressure, considering various factors and potential outcomes.

# 𝟯: 𝗔𝗱𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆

Evaluating how well a candidate can adjust to new challenges, changes in the workplace, or unexpected situations.

# 𝟰: 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: 

Understanding the candidate's ability to work effectively with others, contribute to team goals, and manage interpersonal dynamics.

# 𝟱: 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗢𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 

Evaluating how candidates prioritise tasks, manage their workload, and stay organised.

# 𝟲: 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

Understanding a candidate's ability to think outside the box, propose innovative solutions, and approach problems creatively.

# 𝟳: 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

Evaluating the ability to effectively handle conflicts, mediate disputes, and maintain a productive work environment.

Behavioural interviews assess you on above, based on how you acted on them in the past.

Why? 

Because as per research, the best way to assess how a human will behave in a situation is by knowing how that human behaved in the past in similar situations.

Is this 100% accurate? 

No, but this is the best we got.

Reflect from your own experiences, how many times you have repeated your behaviour in similar situations.  

Prepare for these using structured answering technique like SBI.

If you are aspiring for senior engineering roles (SDE, EM) and need help with behavioural interviews, DM me COACH. 

Everyone says know your leadership style, I say don’t. 

Here is why?

Imagine yourself in an interview for a senior engineering role (SDE, EM).

20 minutes down the line, interviewer asks, "Mr. John, tell me, what is your leadership style". 

Now, through LinkedIn, YouTube and books you have learned there are 10 types of leadership styles. 

You want to pick one for your answer. 

You will think,

- What to tell so that he is impressed
- Or, what is his style, let me say that only
- Or, you are confused & thinking what the hell this is
- Or, you are trying to pick yours from those 10 styles

You finally decide to go for option 4. 

But you don’t know which one it is, because sometimes you show A, while other times you show B. 

So you think, let me be transparent and you come up with a long answer, “when I face this I do this, when that, then something else, blah blah blah”

You spoke for 10 mins. 

Now interviewer has lost the interest. 

Leave knowing your style, he forgot his own. 

You realise after 10 mins, what the hell was I saying. 

Ashamed, and nervous, you took a sip of water, and went for loo before the next round.  

Now imagine this, if this interviewer would have asked this “tell me about a time when you had to say NO to a customer despite knowing how important this customer was”

You could have easily answered this with all the logic and reasoning behind it.

Best part is, without going through the torture of knowing your leadership style. 

This entire situation could have been avoided and converted into a meaningful discussion which would have allowed both the parties to explain their perspective and take decisions. 

That is why I keep saying behavioural interviews to be the most meaningful interviews if done with right technique and intent. 

To be fair, they are not behavioural interviews, they are your leadership interviews. 

This is even more important, when you are applying for senior roles, because at that level companies don’t need employees who can code ( engineer) or manage (manager), rather they need leaders. 

So, my 2 cents for both :

[1] Interviewers : use the interview time in the most meaningful manner. Ask things that helps you in taking decisions, not getting confused. 

[2] Interviewees: prepare your stories well in advance. Show your leadership without putting a label to it. 


If you are an engineer or manager, aspiring for senior engineering roles, and need help, DM me COACH.

I never thought how important data types (int, float) are until Andy Jessy indirectly mentioned it in 2023 letter to shareholders.

If you are from non coding background, read the next 5 lines and then jump to pin📌. 

A few days ago, Andy (CEO of Amazon) sent the annual letter to shareholders. 

One point he mentioned in that letter was how Amazon think in terms of primitives, which allows Amazon to scale at rapid speed.

What are these primitives? 

These are services or product that can't be broken down further. 

Example, object storage like S3 or cloud compute like EC2.

A simpler way is to think of them as primitive data types in Java language. integer, float, boolean etc. 

These data types can't be further broken down, but they can be combined to create a new data type, e.g. Employee, Product etc.

This is a powerful mental model.

📌 How? Lets take a non programming example.

Andy mentioned logistics as an example of primitive services. 

Logistics include things like warehousing items, picking, packing, shipping etc.

Lets apply the building in primitives mental model here.

Primitive: Quick Logistic Service (QLS). It is not an actual Amazon service, I made this acronym for this post.

What can be build using QLS?

1- Fast delivery for prime members. 

2- Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA)

3- Acute Care (via Amazon Clinic), 

4- Primary Care (via One Medical), 

5- Pharmacy service to buy medicines

Above 5 services are picked from the letter.

Now let me add some imaginary ones. 

6- 10 minutes delivery for grocery supplies 

7- 30 mins delivery for emergency products

8- 2 hours delivery for top 500 hygiene products.

So, what is the point?

While this look like a fancy new product or service, deep inside they are nothing but a bunch of primitives combined together to create the best possible customer experience.

Primitives are super important for 2 reasons.

1) They allow scaling at rapid speed. We already discussed this.

2) They believe that the customers of these primitives know what is best for their customers. 

Netflix, Disney+, Airbnb, Dropbox, Instagram, FBA, all are examples of point # 2. 

These customers used the primitives to build something that they thought truly matters for their customers.  


So how can you apply this at work?

While building a new service, talk to other teams with whom you work closely with (either due to the nature of work, or due to proximity) 

While talking to them, don't ask directly what they need from your new service. 

People seldom tell real problems when you ask them for the first time.

Instead, understand what they do, what problems they face. Look for passing remarks. I learned this from Mohanish Pabari.


There are many more nuggets from his letter, which I will be analysing and sharing for next fews days.

If you liked this, then follow me, so that you don't miss the next part of this series.

What are your thoughts on primitives?

And, don't forget to read the disclaimers in comment. 

Taplio

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