Amazon VP On Promotions, Getting Fired Twice, Working With Bezos | Ethan Evans

Ethan Evans went from being fired twice because of poor soft skills to getting promoted to Vice President at Amazon with a team of over 800 engineers. I asked him about everything he learned along the way. We discussed: • Being fired for poor soft skills • What VP promotions look like • Working with Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy (current Amazon CEO) • VP performance reviews • Stack ranking, PIPs and how managers can fire anyone • Advice for his younger self Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (01:01) Experience before Amazon (05:03) Getting fired twice & learnings (14:02) Joining Amazon (16:02) What VP promotions look like (26:03) Promotion failure story (29:14) Integrating Twitch into Amazon (33:48) Jeff Bezos vs Andy Jassy stories (36:53) VP performance reviews (41:10) Stack ranking & PIPs (46:11) A manager can fire anyone they want (50:45) Advice for his younger self (53:03) Outro Where to find Ethan: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/EthanEvansVP • Newsletter: https://levelupwithethanevans.substack.com/ • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-BAdkBGjOIlccGLZ3jbLiA Where to find Ryan: • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/