If you’ve got that nagging itch about changing roles, you may be onto something.
AWS senior vice president of applied AI solutions Colleen Aubrey has spent over 20 years at Amazon, building its advertising business from the ground up. She’s also a member of the company’s elite S-Team.
She told Business Insider that throughout her career, she’s faced numerous challenges — and as she puts it, “pretty much every six months, something significant changes.”
“We have a new product idea; there’s a new problem to go after; there’s a new customer to get to understand,” Aubrey said.
That “constant change” is the reason she’s stayed at Amazon for as long as she has, and remains engaged in her work. For anyone questioning whether they’re in the right role or ready for a new challenge, Aubrey said there are typically three boxes to check off.
“Are you in a place which ticks those boxes? And if you aren’t, then maybe it’s worth looking at changing the mix, in order to get that,” Aubrey said. “Because I think when you have those elements, then work is invigorating.”
Here’s what you should consider, she said:
No. 1: The right boss
Aubrey told Business Insider that you should first ask yourself whether you’re working for a leader with whom you have mutual respect.
“Are you working for a leader that you respect, that you’re inspired by, that you’re learning from, and vice versa?” Aubrey said.
Aubrey said that people generally need their leaders to help with the things only they can provide: resourcing, hard decisions, trade-offs, judgment calls, prioritization, advocacy, and big-picture thinking.
Sometimes, people end up with a manager who isn’t the right match, even if that person is trying their best. The executive said it can become challenging to work in a space where you feel “disenchanted,” and in that case, it may be time to move on to something new.
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“You can choose to live through it and be dissatisfied. I think that’s challenging,” Aubrey said.
No. 2: The right team
Aubrey said you should also ask yourself if you’re working on the right team. The executive has worked on various teams throughout her roughly two decades at the retail giant. The right team includes people you’re really learning from, she said.
“Are they challenging you, or is it a creative and innovative environment that works for you?” Aubrey said.
Amazon’s infamous “two-pizza teams” describes the ideal team to promote innovation. The idea is that no team should be big enough that it would take more than two pizzas to feed them. The ideal size is somewhere around six to eight people, and the goal is for those teams to own something from end-to-end.
No. 3: The right part of the business
The third question you should ask yourself is what stage of the business you want to work in, Aubrey said.
“It’s important to think through what is the type of product and business and problem that you like solving,” Aubrey said. “Are you in a place that has that type of characteristics?”
For example, Aubrey said she had a colleague who worked on the retail side, which can be a complicated and demanding area, but he loved finding improvements in cost optimization and in the supply chain. Personally, she said she loves “X-factor growth,” or working on a part of the business ripe for exponential growth.
“I like the blank sheet of paper,” Aubrey said.
