Amazon engineering leadership on the role of the developer in the age of AI

Amazon engineering leaders, including Distinguished and Senior Principal Engineers, revised the SDE role guideline to focus on outcomes for customers, businesses and teams rather than on specific AI tools, arguing that AI is changing software engineering faster and more fundamentally than past trends like cloud and serverless. The memo urges engineers to learn and apply AI in daily work, cautions that input metrics such as token usage or code changes are flawed if treated as targets, and recommends examining the 10th and 90th percentiles of AI adoption. It also asks leaders to use AI hands-on and to stay closely connected to customers and product direction.