11, 2022. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. FILE – The Amazon logo is pictured at the Amazon Robotic Sorting Fulfillment Center in Madison County, Miss., Aug. Solis, File)
” The note accompanies Amazon’s updated role guideline for software development engineers (SDEs), drawn up by its Distinguished and Senior Principal Engineers.
In a memo sent to software engineers across the company and published on its website on October 27, Amazon recommended “paying special attention to the 10th percentile” of AI adoption, finding teams that “aren’t embracing AI effectively and understanding why. Shared by Terk Terkowitz, VP and Distinguished Engineer for Worldwide Amazon Stores, the memo says AI will sit at the centre of software engineering, even as the company admits it is still early days. Its senior engineers debated whether AI was any different and concluded it is changing the work “more quickly and more fundamentally” than those earlier shifts. One line stands out: “tokenmaxxing is at odds with frugality,” a reference to one of Amazon’s leadership principles. It admits some engineers and managers drifted away from the business as Amazon grew, and says those nearest their products are getting the most out of agentic software development.
Amazon has asked its engineering leaders to take a closer look at teams that are slow to adopt AI. It also points leaders to the other end of the scale, the 90th percentile, where teams use AI heavily, to check whether their delivery has gone up to match. For two decades, Amazon kept specific technologies out of its SDE guidelines, even as cloud, microservices and serverless reshaped the job. To gauge AI use, Amazon has been relying on input metrics such as token usage and adoption of AI tools, along with throughput numbers like code changes and reviews. It also warns that treating them as targets could push up costs and complexity. Measuring lines of code, it adds, clashes with another, invent and simplify. The company also wants engineers closer to customers.