Amazon Updates Engineer Work Guidelines: Evaluations Look at Business Value, Not AI Usage

Amazon has updated its working guidelines for software engineers in the AI era, emphasizing that evaluations should look at how much business value engineers create, rather than how much AI they use. Vice President and Distinguished Engineer Turk Tekowitz stated that data such as token consumption, AI tool usage, and code reviews are somewhat related to work outcomes, but one cannot look only at the numbers; treating these metrics as goals may lead to negative results. The new guidelines also require managers to focus on examining the teams ranked in the bottom 10% and top 10% for AI adoption, and allow positions that are temporarily unable to benefit from AI tools to record the specific reasons.