The Growth And Promotion Recipe - Magic Loop

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Ethan EvansEx-Amazon VP, Leadership Coach
The Growth And Promotion Recipe - Magic Loop poster
Total time: 1 hour, 19 minutes
Course Overview

We all want to grow rapidly in our careers. The methodology presented here is so effective that it has been coined The Magic Loop. This doesn't mean it's easy, but it works incredibly well, almost feeling like magic.

The steps of this growth recipe are easy to explain:

  1. Do your job well
  2. Ask how you can help
  3. Do what you are asked to do
  4. Ask again, with a goal
  5. Repeat

This Magic Loop of Rapid Career Growth is a simple, reliable method to quickly grow your career. Following this algorithm will enable you to learn new skills and get support from your manager.

This course presents the ideas and tools you need to put this into practice:

  • How to make time to focus on your growth (prioritization)
  • Advanced tactics for high performers
  • Guidance for leaders using this with their team
  • Examples of how others have gotten fast results
  • A complete PDF of the course slides

This course is taught by Ethan Evans, a former VP at Amazon who oversaw 100s of promotions across nearly 2 decades at the company. The magic loop framework works for all levels and job functions, from the new grad software engineer in Big Tech to the Director-level executive at a scale-up.

Meet Ethan Evans

Ethan Evans is a retired Amazon Vice President, now sharing his leadership expertise.

Starting at Amazon as a Senior Manager, then Director, then Vice President, Ethan has had decades of experience in the skill of managing up. In this course, he shares stories of presenting to executives like Jeff Bezos, Andy Jassy, and others. In addition, as a senior leader in the company, Ethan saw both effective and ineffective ways that his employees managed up to him.

Ethan spent 12 years in startups (10 in leadership roles) and then had a 15 year career at Amazon. He has led global teams of 800+ and products with annual revenue above $500M. He holds over 70 patents. More about Ethans:

  • Reviewed 10,000+ resumes, conducted 2,500+ interviews, and 1,000+ hires.
  • Was an Amazon Bar Raiser and Bar Raiser Core Leader, responsible for training and maintaining Amazon's group of interview outcome facilitators.
  • Helped advocate for and draft the Amazon Leadership Principle (LP) "Ownership" β€” the words "They never say β€˜that’s not my job." are Ethan's.

These career growth courses are developed from his own knowledge and input from his extensive network of fellow coaches and executives. (See Rahul's interview with Ethan about the top 1% of engineers.)


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Senior Machine Learning EngineerCapital One

Wonderful class 😍

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Entry-Level Software EngineerTransport for London (TfL)

Very succinct and well-explained.

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Mid-Level Software Engineer L4Walmart
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Mid-Level Software EngineerRemitly
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Grade 11Cisco
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Mid-Level Software EngineerMicrosoft
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Senior Software Engineer [E5]DoorDash
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Senior Software EngineerElula Tech
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Software EngineerUnemployed