Smart at Work: Recent Episodes
Ankur
Tips and tricks to grow smartly at work. I have 15 years of experience as an engineer and a manager working for big tech and startups. Contact : smartatworkpodcast@gmail.com
Amazon has a strong writing culture. Every review meeting typically lasts an hour where the first 30 mins everyone sits quietly reading the document written by the presenter. With red pens in hand, the attendees underline and take notes on the margins of the hardcopy. The documents are in narrative form with lots of objective details. Once everyone has read the document, the presenter takes feedback page by page. For anyone new at writing documents, the first few of these meetings at Amazon can be brutal. But they also are great learning opportunities. To help managers be successful, Amazon provides instructor led training sessions to improve writing skills. To get ahead in the company, writing is a must have skill.
I worked at Amazon for more than 10 years, initially as an engineer and then as a manager. Over those 10 years I learnt writing effectively to communicate and influence my peers and leadership. Those lessons in writing taught me to think with clarity and drive down to the essence of the topic of interest. I use those lessons everyday even after leaving Amazon and they make me more effective at work.
Contact : smartatworkpodcast@gmail.com
What makes certain companies like Amazon crazy successful while hundreds others come and go. What do they do well that others don't. What makes them survive multiple black swan events and challenges. In the case of Amazon I have few observations from the time I spent 10 years working for them from 2010 to 2020. During that time it’s market cap grew more than 30X. I saw the company transform itself from an online retailer to an everything store while its stock price grew from $100 to above $3000. Now that I look back at my time there I realise what an amazing journey it was and I can reflect on why it is such an exceptional company in spite of many negatives it has.
I will discuss what I think are the factors that made Amazon the exceptional successful company it is today.
Contact : smartatworkpodcast@gmail.com
In this episode I share some tips on getting the maximum compensation when changing jobs and not leave money on the table.
Contact : smartatworkpodcast@gmail.com
You don't need to be a sycophant to get promoted! I talk about 8 steps to getting promoted without sucking up to your boss. I worked at Amazon and my advice is from the lens of FAANG ish companies but they should apply to employees from most organizations.
Contact : smartatworkpodcast@gmail.com