My journey to Sr. SDE

Hi all,

Hi all,

I just want to share my journey from SDE-1 to Sr. SDE in Amazon in 4.5 years.

I joined Amazon in Q1 2020, days before the COVID as an SDE-1. I was working in a company before which is known to have a very chill work environment. I got bored there, and wanted to join Amazon specifically because it had a reputation of having too much work. I just wanted to work my ass off.

I had imposter syndromes when I joined. So many smart people and engineers all around me. I doubted if I'll survive there. All I could think was how to do my job in a better way. Luckily, I got a good manager who trusted me and gave chances to perform. I worked hard, and got promoted to SDE-2 in 1.5 years.

After that, I took a break for 6 months (worked very little, focused on some personal stuff). Again, luck played a major part and my manager understood this and didn't give me a lot of pressure during that time.

After this break, I focused on work again, watched some videos in YouTube around what's the expectations from a senior engineer in any team (link in comments). These videos helped me understand the expectations from a senior engineer in the team. I started to focus on finding systematic problems in the team, and worked with my manager to solve some of them. Wrote a lot of documents, pushed through to get some of that implemented, or implemented some of them myself. In parallel, I was also expected to perform well as an SDE-2, so I did that as well. HLDs, LLDs, reviews I did it all. Noticed other senior engineers in my team on how to design, write better code, how to do better reviews etc. Kept watching content around system design, having good mindset etc. I believe luck played a major part again most of the things I started worked out in favor of our team. Few things didn't (designs rejected, projects shelved).

Anyhow, after some hesitation and after 2 years (around Q3, 2023), approached my manager to ask about gaps for a SDE 3 promo. He informed I was meeting most of the requirements and a few which needed some work. We started working on those alongside the promotion document. With some effort and hiccups, my promotion was approved in Q2, 2024. I was so happy and relieved.

What's next, well taking some time to relax, feeling imposter syndrome again, starting to learn some new stuff. Hope to be a better engineer with time.

As I've mentioned, I feel luck played a major part, having a good manager is not easy, and things usually don't work out as well as they did for me. Grateful for these.

Feel free me ask any questions you have.

Thanks for listening to my 2 cents.