Good intentions don't work

In praise of the Amazon culture

When I got hired at Amazon in 2017, I had to read many materials to become a good soldier for the Amazon software engineers army. Most of the content is a giant advertisement for Amazon; some videos explain how ballsy Bezos was for driving from New York to Seattle or how irresistible he was (an approximate quote from his ex-wife in a documentary was, “How can you resist this laugh” - to which I have many answers to).

One particular quote in this whole propaganda struck me. It’s still in my mind today and helps me make daily decisions. I remember it like this (approximate quote):

Good intentions don’t work. Processes do.

The original quote seems to be, “Good intentions never work; you need good mechanisms to make anything happen” but you get the idea. Once you internalize and understand this quote, you can understand the fundamental difference between Amazon and other technology companies and how many people get things wrong.

Bad decisions and inefficiencies often come from a lack of processes. How many bad outcomes come from decisions made based on a gut feeling and do not follow a logical thinking process? How many important decisions are made without a clear approval process? How many teams rely on wishful thinking, believing things will get done because someone promises to work hard on it or has magical skills to make things happen?

Great teams have and follow clear, lightweight, and documented processes. When working on an engineering task, requirements and solutions are documented. When working on an on-call shift, issues, and remediation steps are documented in a runbook for others to follow. When making an important decision, the decision process must be documented: the benefits and drawbacks of the decision, who the decision-makers are, etc.

Humans are fallible by nature. We need to protect ourselves from our potential bad decisions. We also need to avoid any implicit knowledge and make it explicit for others to learn from us. Do not fall into the trap of over-engineering your process and becoming more bureaucratic than the government. But add the necessary processes to prevent shooting yourself in the foot, make the right decisions, and ensure your team aligns with them.

As a software engineer, Amazon is one of the best companies you can work for. The company follows clear processes and principles that help your team to align on what to work on and how to work on it. From the two pizzas team to the no PowerPoint meeting, Amazon culture makes you a better engineer.