Getting a promotion at Amazon isn’t easy. Indeed, some say the process is brutal. And moving up may have more do to with your boss’s ability to present your case than how well you actually perform your job.
Long before Amazon initiated its latest (and largest) round of layoffs, longtime tech journalist Brad Stone described Amazon's tough promotion process in his book, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. Essentially, promotion at the e-commerce giant requires having a boss willing to go to bat for you against his or her peers. Your boss also can’t have been recently promoted.
In theory, this system is supposed to reduce internal politics and create something of a meritocracy. But it can have quite the opposite effect, writes Stone: "Most Amazon employees know the OLR [or ‘organization and leadership review’] as the meeting where careers and livelihoods can be won and lost in an instant." The OLRs are held twice a year.
As Stone also described:
"Say you’ve worked tirelessly at Amazon for several years. You approach your boss, asking for a promotion and a raise, and he agrees. Good news, right? Not so fast. The boss, perhaps a vice president, attends an OLR that begins as most Amazon meetings do: With everyone reading printouts of a six-page “narrative” detailing the meeting’s agenda. After your boss’s fellow VPs quietly sit and read the pros and cons of your promotion, a debate follows, with various execs weighing in with their own experiences working with you."
According to Stone, the discussions can become heated, as only a limited number of promotions are handed out. Every promotion given means someone else missed out, leading managers to promote their own picks and work against other managers’ choices.
“So if you get bumped up, someone else’s favorite subordinate might have to stand still. Anyone in the room can sink a promotion,” Stone concludes.
Thus, a system intended to stop political promotions and apply Bezos’ values evenly across the corporation can actually hold some qualified folks back. Writes Stone: “Ambitious employees tend to spend months having lunch and coffee with their boss’s peers to ensure a positive outcome once the topic of their proposed promotion is raised in an OLR.” Working for the proper manager is also important, as newly promoted managers are sometimes unable to get any subordinates bumped up for years.
Of course, it's also been a number of years since Stone's book came out. Despite the recent layoffs, Amazon has been making big moves lately to retain its most talented technologists, including record amounts of stock and a raise in the maximum base salary. But as anyone who works in tech knows, one of the most powerful ways to retain workers is to offer an environment where they feel they can achieve their maximum potential, including a way to climb the ranks.
