Machiavellian

Over my very short tenure I've found myself in increasingly high-level discussions in my organization. I was flattered at first to be moving beyond coding, to be interacting with other teams and directors, giving them guidance. It happened very quickly. Privately my bosses would coach me on how to manipulate others into doing what we wanted. This was codified through the "Leadership Principles." It got to the point where I wasn't sure why we're doing it. There is a decade of technical debt and operational torment within my team. We do our best to keep it running, while fielding never-ending requests from external teams. I no longer believe we are serving any meaningful purpose to anyone. We are artificially inflating and deflating metrics, churning through people in the process. I don't provide value anymore. I've become a self-hosting compiler of bullsh*t modeled after my bosses. We provide a miserable experience to mostly outsourced teams who are whipped into working with us. I used to build products that made people happy, made people money, made myself learn nerdy facts that pleased me. Now I twirl my mustache manipulating people. I've make lists that are the marketing content for conversations. I ferment on email texts before sending them to people. It is evil. It is Kafkaesque. It is not what I dreamed Amazon would be. I am putting in my 2 weeks tomorrow.