‘I’m the bad guy’: Ex-Amazon VP recalls the time he ‘screwed over’ a junior
A retired Amazon VP has opened up about the time he inadvertently betrayed a junior, urging others in positions of power to avoid making the same mistake
A retired Amazon Vice President has opened up about the time he inadvertently betrayed a junior, urging others in positions of power to avoid making the same mistake he did. Ethan Evans, who retired from Amazon as Vice President of Prime Gaming in 2020, said that he once promised a promotion to one of his team members but could not deliver on his promise when the time came.
The incident occurred during his early years at Amazon when he was a Senior Manager. According to his LinkedIn profile, Evans spent over 15 years with Amazon, starting as a Senior Manager in 2005 and climbing the corporate ladder until he was appointed Vice President of Prime Gaming in 2019.
Ex-Amazon VP’s regret
In a post shared on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Evans wrote: “I screwed over one of my top engineers when I was a Senior Manager at Amazon.”
He said that the engineer felt betrayed and eventually quit the job. Evans described that time as a “dark spot” in his career and urged others to learn from his mistake.
Elaborating upon what happened, he wrote, “I joined Amazon in April 2005. This engineer was a new graduate assigned to my team, which was a new team for a new project.”
The project had a strict deadline. While everyone on the team was talented, Evans described this particular engineer as a “top performer”. The engineer told him he would “do whatever was needed to ship the project if I made sure he was promoted as a result.”
Evans promised to promote the engineer if he managed to meet the project’s tight deadline.
The ‘betrayal’
However, the retired VP did not realise that he would not be able to keep his word in a massive company like Amazon, where each promotion involves multiple approvals.
“This engineer trusted me to follow through on the deal, but there was a problem. I had just come to Amazon from the startup world, where there was no formal promotion process. When we wanted to promote someone, we just gave them a new title and a raise.
“I had no understanding of Amazon's process, so I figured that when the project was over I would talk to my boss and get the engineer promoted,” he confessed.
That was not the case.
While the engineer kept up his end of the bargain and shipped the project, Evans could not keep true to his word.
On X, he revealed: “The engineer kept his end of the deal, and the product shipped right around the time of Amazon's fall promotion cycle.
“The cycle came and went, and I could not get the engineer promoted. So, he left and told me straight up that it was because I did not follow through on his promotion.”
The lesson
“I am the bad guy in the story,” Evans admitted, adding that if he could go back in time and change things, he would. However, he had some thoughts on what lessons managers and employees could take from his story.
Evans advised employees to remember that at large companies, new managers may not understand the promotion process. “If you have a new manager, odds are it will slow your career progress. You can fight this by making sure they understand the complex process so that they can navigate it on your behalf,” he said.
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Secondly, he urged employees to note that their managers will never be as invested in their promotion as they are. “I meant no harm to my team member, but I was busy with the project and I was not a mature leader. His promotion was not top of mind for me because I thought my job was to ship software, not to grow the careers of my team members. I was incompetent but not malicious,” he explained.
Evans also asked managers to remember that knowing the process matters and that employees cannot move up without feedback and engagement.
