What happened
Amazon has updated its software engineering guidelines as AI agents take on more of the coding work. The document, sent to developers earlier this year by engineering leaders and published last week under the byline of Michael "Terk" Terkowitz, says AI agents now write almost all the code that would previously have been written by hand for the vast majority of Amazon's developers.
A shift in metrics
Marc Brooker, an AWS vice president and distinguished engineer who co-authored the accompanying letter, said the update emphasizes measuring engineers and teams by outcomes rather than inputs. He said industry anti-patterns such as focusing on token spend or lines of code committed do not equate to customer value. AI use is not directly part of performance reviews in a metrics sense, he added.
Velocity Labs
The story also reveals Velocity Labs, a roughly 35-person team formed inside AWS in April and based mostly in Seattle. Last month the group took an open-source AI model from concept to public release in less than a week. The team aims to move beyond Amazon's usual product-oriented approach and build quick prototypes in underexplored AI areas.
Pressure debate
Amazon has faced reports of pressure on engineers to use AI tools. The company has set a goal for more than 80% of its developers to use AI each week, according to reports. In May it shut down an internal leaderboard called KiroRank that ranked employees by their use of the Kiro AI coding tool after some used it excessively to climb the rankings.
