Earlier this year, on 05/30 (this is how Amazon writes dates, 30th May) I walked out of the amazing Amazon Africa headquarters in Cape Town, after spending four years and six months, as a senior engineering leader. I'm writing this post three months after a sabbatical break, and after a week into my new job (started 09/01) in a totally different field of Intelligent Traffic Systems...
Here's a screenshot from my LinkedIn profile on my time with AWS:
Here's a video of me from 2022:
And here's some memories from my time there. Listen, I did enjoy my time with Kumo/AWS. I met some fantastic, highly intelligent, self-driven, motivated and resilient people from diverse backgrounds, from all over the world. AWS is indeed a special place. Their motto: Work Hard. Have Fun. Make History -- is very real! For anyone considering working in AWS, go for it! But be sure to do your homework first. This is just my story, a single datapoint from 1.5 million Amazonians, and 290000+ AWS employees worldwide.
Memorable moments with my teams...
I left AWS in good standing if I decided to boomerang back, here's a goodbye email sent by my manager to 1000+ people:
Why did you leave AWS, you seem to have been on a good trajectory, yes?
My AWS colleagues, family, friends and now too, my new coworkers asked me why I left AWS. Feelings about exiting AWS started back in Q3 2024 triggered by the events unfolding in the middle east, causing me to reflect deeply on my personal and professional aspirations critically assessing my value system, borne from my RAGE model which has been my north star for over a decade.
It turned out that the key metric is Return on Investment (ROI) across these three dimensions: 1/ Spirituality; 2/ Professional Growth and 3/ Work-Life balance.
