My seventh-year anniversary in AWS was two weeks ago. Time flies!

I shared seven learnings with my org that day. One was Amazon-specific. I am sharing the other six here. If you continue to read, hope it'll be a good use of your time. 1/9

(1) If you need someone to "hear" you out, an effective way in general (and 'the' only effective one in Amazon) is to write a doc, setup time on that person's calendar, sit in a room (or on mute) and have them read your doc. A good doc will get the job done in one meeting. 2/9

(2) Being curious and keep learning is probably the most important investment you can make for yourself. Your career growth stagnates when the learning does. 3/9

(3) Coding != Software Development. Coding is only a small piece in making an idea reality by socializing it, proving it, designing it, testing it, executing the project for it, releasing it without impact, operating it,... 4/9

...and making sure it stays maintainable and scalable for a good amount of years. Make sure you learn and sharpen skills in other areas of software development life cycle, not just in coding. 5/9

(4) Participate in voluntary programs that target increasing the quality in something in your org, like change management, interview experience, etc. From afar, these might look like burdens that only take from you and never give back... 6/9

...In reality, these programs help you learn (company culture, interviewing skills, avoid mistakes others did, etc.) Also, at some point, participating in these becomes an expectation from you. Your success in your org will matter as long as that very org remains successful. 7/9

(5) Be the person everyone says "Oh, for that, you have to go talk to [you]." Be a subject matter expert (SME) in at least one thing. Learn everything there can be learned on that thing. Help others also become SMEs in it. 8/9

(6) Find the group of people that you enjoy working with and stick with them. Know them well and let them know you well. Through years of collaboration with those people you will have your chance to make a big difference in your domain 9/9.