Article
15 min read
How Does Amazon Enable Training and Development? Pledging Upskilling and Career Growth
Global HR
Author
Lorelei Trisca
Last Update
February 28, 2025
Published
February 27, 2025
In the fast-paced world of e-commerce and technology, Amazon stands tall as a colossus. But beyond its customer-centric approach and technological innovations lies a less-sung yet equally impressive feat—its commitment to employee training and development.
For four years in a row, Amazon has been crowned in the top three “best workplace to grow your career” in the U.S. by LinkedIn.
Through programs like Career Choice, Amazon proves that it values its employees’ present contributions and aims to equip them with the skills and knowledge needed for long-term success and fulfillment.
“As an employer, part of our role, I think, is to understand what the knowledge, skills, and abilities are for the jobs that we have today. And where are those trends taking us so that we can help people stay current.”—Ardine Williams, former Vice President of Workforce Development, Amazon, in a conversation with the Lessons Earned Podcast.
This case study will delve deeply into Amazon’s employee learning and progression. We’ll talk about how these initiatives have contributed to the successes of not only the individuals but also the organization in its entirety.
Learn all about
- Amazon’s unique L&D philosophy—a tale of foresight, innovation, and unwavering commitment to employee development
- How Amazon built a diverse portfolio of upskilling programs for their people
- How Amazon facilitates career growth via the Career Choice Program
- The role of innovation and agility in ensuring that the L&D initiatives are in keeping with the current business environment and needs
How Amazon supports employee development
Amazon’s learning and development (L&D) team isn’t just about traditional training. They’re on a mission to enhance the day-to-day lives of their people, bringing about changes that benefit both the employees and the customers.
Initiatives like Career Choice, Amazon Technical Academy, Machine Learning University, and apprenticeships offer professional growth and development avenues and create a culture of continuous learning.
“The Learning & Development team [...] design[s] and deliver[s] learning programs to guide and support employees’ career paths inside Amazon and implement improvements that make a real difference for both our workers and our customers.”—Amazon Jobs.
Let’s analyze the key elements that exemplify Amazon’s commitment to employee learning, but this is by no means an exhaustive list.
Extensive opportunities for upskilling: Building skills today for tomorrow’s jobs
Amazon provides upskilling for all employees. There will be something for everyone, whether entry-level, mid-seniority, technical, or non-technical. We selected some programs showcasing Amazon’s diverse learning and upskilling offerings.
“We want to make it easy for people to have access to the skills they need to grow their careers. [...] we’re committing more than $1.2 billion to provide free education and skills training opportunities to more than 300,000 of our own employees in the US to help them secure new, high-growth jobs.”—Amazon, Our Upskilling Commitments.
Amazon Technical Academy
The Amazon Technical Academy program upskills Amazon employees aspiring to become software engineers. It offers training in essential skills and has placed over 95% of program graduates into software development engineer roles within Amazon.
The program aims to demystify software engineering skills and make them accessible to participants from diverse backgrounds. Graduates come from various professional and personal backgrounds, reflecting the program’s intentional accessibility.
“There is a huge need for software developers, and not just at Amazon. This program helps fill that gap that exists in the industry right now.”—Ashley Rajagopal, former Program Manager of Amazon Technical Academy.
The program focuses on combining instructor-led, project-based learning with real-world applications. Amazon partners with online training providers to offer its curriculum outside of Amazon. These partnerships aim to provide more individuals with industry-leading software engineering skills. The program supports career advancement and provides a pathway for employees to transition into technical roles.
Amazon Technical Apprenticeship
Certified by the US Department of Labor, the Amazon Technical Apprenticeship program offers paid classroom training and apprenticeships to veterans and their spouses. The program helps participants gain valuable skills through a paid training course and on-the-job training to best prepare them for careers at Amazon.
Participants can choose between multiple career paths, such as cloud support associate, technical sales, support engineer, and software development engineer.
Amazon AWS Grow Our Own Talent
Amazon’s AWS Grow Our Own Talent initiative provides on-the-job training and job placement opportunities, particularly in Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers. The program supports employees with non-traditional experience in gaining on-the-job tech training and development.
The program is open to people with little or no relevant work experience and requires no college degree. It offers participants a combination of on-the-job training and placement opportunities.
Amazon Surge2IT
Amazon’s Surge2IT aims to advance entry-level IT employees to higher-paying technical roles through tuition-free education and training.
The program offers a broad scope of skills training, including topics such as:
- Amazon networks, devices, tools, and technology
- Internal IT customer service
- Introduction to project management
- Network routing and infrastructure
- Linux command line
- Windows administration, etc.
The program also includes a module focused on leadership and professional development, equipping participants with the knowledge on:
- How to build professional relationships
- How to find a mentor
- How to coach others
- How to write a resume
- How to nail an interview, etc.
Surge2IT is a self-service program comprising 40 hours of content so participants can learn at their own pace.
Amazon Machine Learning University (MLU)
Amazon’s Machine Learning University helps employees with a tech background gain skills in machine learning, which is critical for customer innovation.
The program consists of six-week modules requiring only half to one full day of participation a week and offers graduate-school-level training.
“What we’re doing is helping prepare our workforce for the next wave of technology that Amazon is investing in.”—Bree Al-Rashid, Former manager of the MLU team.
MLU enjoys high popularity among Amazon staff due to the program’s ability to remove barriers that often prevent mid-career professionals from attending graduate school:
- No high tuition costs—Amazonians never pay for classes (even if they move on to a new company)
- No need to juggle demanding day jobs with afternoon classes: Amazon employees are excused from one day per week of their regular work
- No need to travel to a university campus
- No worries about the real-life relevance of the curriculum: the learning experience is tailor-made for Amazon employees
The Career Choice program: Supporting career growth beyond Amazon
Career Choice is an innovative Amazon program designed to upskill employees interested in pursuing a future outside of Amazon.
“Career mobility is a large part of what makes Amazon’s culture unique. Whether employees want to move upward, leverage transferable skills in a new role, or build a career in an entirely new industry, those opportunities are available to employees at all levels. Amazon employees understand that growth means more than promotions or vertical jumps. It includes non-traditional growth paths, such as the ability to develop new skills, explore new roles, and build and manage teams of all sizes.”—Amazon, Workplace.
The Amazon Career Choice program pays up to 95% of tuition and associated fees for courses at accredited schools that lead to vocational certifications or Associate of Applied Science (AAS) degrees in the five eligible fields of study:
- Administration and Business Services
- Information Technology
- Healthcare
- Mechanical and Skilled Trades
- Transportation
Employees can unlock the gateway to today’s most sought-after careers, such as commercial driver training (CDL), computer-aided design, machine tool technology, dental hygiene, nursing, and more.
One of the program’s key features is the availability of on-site classrooms, making it convenient for associates to attend classes without leaving work early or using their days off.
The Career Choice program collaborates with hundreds of education providers across the United States, providing opportunities for college education, industry certifications, language proficiency, and high school completion.
“I worked in a warehouse setting for years but knew I wanted to help people and had been curious about healthcare. In just nine months, I became a certified clinical medical assistant while working at Amazon in Tracy, California, thanks to Career Choice.
A career in healthcare would have been difficult to obtain without tuition support from Amazon and an internship opportunity to apply my new skills. For anyone thinking about it, you only have something to gain from participating in the Career Choice program.”—Career Choice graduate Patricia Soto, certified medical assistant and former Amazon operations employee.
Through the Career Choice program, Amazon fully funds college tuition, high school diplomas, GEDs, and ESL proficiency certifications for frontline employees, including those with as little as three months of tenure. The program also covers books and fees.
“By delivering training in high-demand career paths, we are proud to give eligible employees the tools they need to make a move and pursue their career aspirations beyond Amazon.”—Amazon Upskilling 2025 Report.
Amazon also offers three education programs focused on data center maintenance and technology, IT, user experience, and research design.
The company aims to support its employees in growing their careers. Over 80,000 employees worldwide have already participated in Career Choice.
“By providing that training and adding it to the work experience, we provide a career ladder. Now, a large number of our employees—400,000 in the US—work across our fulfillment center network, and in many cases, there aren’t the career opportunities within the company for those folks.
And so by providing something like Career Choice, we create a career path for people, whether it’s inside the company or outside.”—Ardine Williams, Amazon’s former Vice President of Workforce Development, in an interview with FRONTLINE PBS.
Amazon Pathways: An accelerated track to senior management
Amazon Pathways is a leadership development program for candidates pursuing a master’s degree (or doctorate in some countries) or with a military background.
“Having started businesses on my own in the past, I know that the best way to learn a business is to work your way up from the bottom. The only training program that I was truly excited about was Amazon.”—Eyal, Fulfillment Center Senior Operations Manager, quoted in Amazon, Leadership Development & Training.
As part of the Pathways program, participants can reach senior management within Amazon Operations in just five years. The pathway career progression includes three steps:
- Operations manager: A Pathways Operations Manager begins their career at Amazon with the unique experience of being a frontline manager
- Senior manager: At this level, the participants will execute supply chain, transportation, and logistics initiatives
- Director: Graduates from the program emerge as “leaders recognized for operational excellence.” Their next career step is to use their knowledge to lead a new team, project, business, or site
Career Management
Top reasons behind Amazon’s current L&D strategy
In response to the rapidly changing needs of employers and employees in the post-pandemic workplace, Amazon has been leading the way in offering a diverse range of programs and opportunities.
These initiatives aim to attract and engage employees by providing top-quality learning and development experiences.
1. Responding to talent demands and fast-changing technology
Instead of relying solely on external recruitment for specialized roles and skill sets, Amazon cultivates these abilities internally, creating a more resilient and versatile workforce.
The upskilling commitments, in particular, ensure that Amazon’s workforce remains adaptable and skilled in the face of technological advancements.
“The investment is a large-scale experiment in whether companies can remake their existing workforces to fit a fast-changing technological world. [...] But with unemployment low and workers scarce, companies like Amazon feel pressure to look internally to fill their labor needs.”—Ben Casselman & Adam Satariano, Amazon’s Latest Experiment: Retraining Its Work Force, The New York Times.
By addressing skill shortages internally and preparing its workforce for future technological challenges, Amazon’s learning and development strategy is a model for other organizations facing similar challenges in talent management and technology adaptation.
2. Keeping L&D at the core of a long-term talent management strategy
In today’s employee-driven job market, providing support for skills development during the workday and offering better learning benefits are crucial for companies to stay competitive in talent acquisition and retention.
Eric Adams, VP of Global Talent Management, Talent Development, Exec Recruiting, and Compensation at Amazon, emphasizes the importance of skills development, career advancement, and professional mobility as essential elements for recruiting and retaining top talent, revealing the strategic importance of L&D in Amazon’s long-term plans:
“The past few years have shown that skills development, career advancement, and professional mobility are no longer nice-to-haves but are the key to recruiting and retaining top talent across our workforce. We continue to innovate on our many upskilling and development programs and provide new opportunities for our employees and potential employees who are looking to build their careers at Amazon.”
3. Upskilling people as a pillar of Amazon’s corporate responsibility
As one of the largest private employers in the US, Amazon recognizes its responsibility to shape the job market. As a result, upskilling and career growth programs go beyond their internal workforce. Their Career Choice program prepares employees for new roles in their communities outside Amazon.
“As the second largest private employer in the US, we have a role to play in creating good jobs. And for us, we believe jobs — good jobs — comprise three things: A good starting wage [...] access to egalitarian benefits from day one, so that’s mental health, medical, vision, paid family leave, and the opportunity to add skills to experience because we know that when you add skills to experience, you open doors for people to continue on a career trajectory.
And we do that whether the jobs are at Amazon, or in the case of our Career Choice program, those jobs exist outside of the company.”—Ardine Williams, Amazon’s former VP of Workforce Development, in an interview with wbur.
4. Empowering people with career mobility and growth opportunities
Amazon’s unique culture embraces career mobility as a vital aspect of employee growth. Whether employees seek upward movement, transferable skills in new roles, or even career shifts to different industries, Amazon offers opportunities at all levels.
As a result, Amazon’s commitment is not only to create jobs but also to ensure these are pathways for long-term career development and personal growth. By training thousands in in-demand skills, Amazon enhances the career prospects of its employees within the company and prepares them for higher-paying opportunities in the broader job market.
This approach reflects Amazon’s dedication to advancing employee careers, contributing to local communities, and setting a benchmark for corporate responsibility in workforce development.
Learning Management
The key to Amazon’s L&D success
From comprehensive training initiatives to innovative learning platforms, Amazon prioritizes employee growth and development. Here are the key aspects highlighting how Amazon’s L&D efforts distinguish the company in the corporate landscape.
Committing to continuous learning
Amazon’s culture emphasizes continuous learning and adaptation, encouraging employees to regularly update their skills and knowledge to stay competitive and innovative.
The company makes it easy for employees who want to upskill by offering days off to attend various learning programs and the flexibility to adjust their work schedule to juggle their jobs and training.
Enabling diverse career paths
Amazon’s programs cater to a wide range of career paths, from technical roles in software and IT to positions in operations and leadership.
The diversity in training opportunities benefits employees from various departments and levels.
Innovating in learning methods
Amazon employs innovative learning methods, including digital platforms, hands-on training, and project-based learning. This variety of teaching techniques caters to different learning styles and helps to impart skills effectively.
There are also vast opportunities for on-the-job learning, further driving knowledge retention and enabling employees to get positions in the field they are studying or upskilling for.
Focusing on on-the-job training
Amazon offers multiple apprenticeships to its people. Apprentices are paid, full-time employees who typically transition into full-time roles upon completing their programs and attaining required certifications.
For some of our apprenticeships, Amazon includes on-the-job learning hours and professional development through team networking and mentorship.
“These programs not only equip individuals with essential skills and certifications but also cultivate a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and inclusivity. [...] [A]pprenticeships are far more than mere pathways to jobs. They serve as powerful catalysts for fostering long-term careers, propelling both personal growth and the broader advancement of the industry.”—Jennifer Carlson, Executive Director of Apprenti, Amazon’s partner for administering the apprenticeship program.
Clearly linking L&D efforts with Amazon’s business goals
The training programs align closely with Amazon’s business objectives, such as expanding AWS services or enhancing its operations network. This alignment ensures that the skills employees acquire directly apply to their roles within the company.
Additionally, by investing in employee growth and development, Amazon enhances its workforce capabilities and boosts employee satisfaction and retention.
Identifying in-demand jobs as the first step in creating upskilling programs
All upskilling programs offered by Amazon have a vital element: They prepare people for in-demand, future-oriented jobs.
“In many cases, folks who offer education benefits will say, ‘Hey, we’re going to offer you this education, and we wish you the best of luck. We start with the end job in mind, and then we build backward from there.”—Tammy Thieman, Director of Amazon Career Choice.
This approach ensures that career growth is always front and center and that these programs are curated and created in a way that empowers employees to pursue the next steps in their careers.
Supporting employees from non-traditional backgrounds
Gallup’s The American Upskilling Study research reveals that upskilling opportunities are disproportionately offered to the highest-skilled workers. Many of those who want it most — those who express the greatest desire to learn skills for a new career and have the least confidence in their current skills—are the least likely to have benefited from upskilling programs or to be employed in companies that provide them.
This does not match the reality at Amazon. Many Amazon L&D initiatives emphasize upskilling individuals from non-traditional backgrounds, demonstrating a commitment to diversity and inclusivity in the workforce.
Deel Engage
How can you run a development process like Amazon?
Deel Engage lets you run a people development process like Amazon. Here is a step-by-step breakdown.
Inventory your people’s skills
Deel Engage’s skills matrix feature lets you understand your people’s strengths and skill gaps. This tool establishes a common understanding of skills at team, department, and company levels, which aligns with Amazon’s focus on skill development and career progression.
Skills matrix on Deel Engage highlighting team strengths and weaknesses
Create diverse training tracks
Amazon strongly emphasizes learning and development at all levels to ensure that growth is a constant pursuit for all its employees. You can do the same using Deel’s LMS module, which offers the means to create engaging learning experiences for staff members. Use them to boost knowledge retention and participation with learning content, videos, messages, surveys, quizzes, tasks, and group activities.
Creating learning courses on Deel Engage—Add quizzes for improved learner engagement
Moreover, you can personalize the course according to individual employees’ requirements and preferences—add videos for those who are more visual or text for those who prefer going through the written material.
You can create your training resources and add them to the library for your employees or choose. Offering a wide selection of learning resources mirrors Amazon’s commitment to providing diverse and comprehensive training opportunities.
Accelerate content creation with Deel Engage’s AI assistant
Clarify career growth opportunities
With Deel’s career progression frameworks, your people will know what’s expected of them to reach the next level in their careers.
More than just describing key competencies and role expectations for each level, you can use career paths to pinpoint the critical training resources or certificates for each role. You can add both mandatory and optional resources. In this way, your people can proactively prepare for the next step in their careers.
Detailed career progression frameworks on Deel Engage
Document your people’s growth endeavors
Use Deel’s development plans to document all the steps your people are taking toward upskilling and career development. HR teams can create templates that managers and their teams can use as starting points.
We recommend using 1:1 conversations managed through the Slack plugin to check on progress and adjust in case of need.
Go the extra mile to nurture your leadership, just like Amazon
Amazon invests in developing its managers through specialized programs focusing on skills and essential leadership qualities like enhanced decision-making and the ability to motivate teams.
Like Amazon, you can leverage Deel Engage to enable your managers to take on the role of coaches rather than just administrators by providing them with tools for development.
Customer success story
Check out how Deel Engage helped Freeletics create a training routine for their leaders.
Future-proof your people and business with Deel Engage
Deel Engage streamlines the people development process by combining multiple tools into one integrated solution. This approach is crucial for replicating Amazon’s L&D strategy, where multiple aspects of learning, development, and employee progression are seamlessly integrated.
No other solution will allow you to launch and run impactful people development that connects skills and competencies, feedback, growth, and career progression at this speed.
Take the first step in enabling the future of people development with Deel. Book a demo with our consultants.
Disclaimer: The data outlined in this content is accurate at the time of publishing and is subject to change or updating. Deel does not make any representations as to the completeness or accuracy of the information on this page.
About the author
Lorelei Trisca is a content marketing manager passionate about everything AI and the future of work. She is always on the hunt for the latest HR trends, fresh statistics, and academic and real-life best practices. She aims to spread the word about creating better employee experiences and helping others grow in their careers.
