Amazon's HR Chief Hadn't Coded in 25 Years, Then Wrote 100,000 Lines With AI
Amazon Senior Vice President Beth Galetti, who leads the company's global HR organization, revealed she recently wrote more than 100,000 lines of code using AI tools, 25 years after last working as a professional software developer, according to her own account published on Amazon's official newsroom.
From Software Developer to HR Chief, and Back to Building
Galetti's path to this moment is genuinely unusual. She began her career as a software developer building package tracking and international logistics systems, before eventually moving into senior leadership roles, including running full air and ground transportation networks. In 2013, while interviewing at Amazon for a transportation role, a recruiter asked whether she'd consider a job in HR instead, having noticed how much she lit up discussing employee development. She's led Amazon's People Experience and Technology organization ever since.
What Actually Happened When She Started Building Again
Galetti described starting small, building a family calendaring app outside of work as her first project back. "It had been so long since I'd built anything that I was honestly a little nervous to start," she wrote. "I took a deep breath, started interacting with the tools, and within a couple of hours, I had something real." That early success led directly to a more substantial project: on a flight back to Seattle, she opened Kiro, Amazon's AI-powered development tool, and by the time she landed, had built the submission app for an internal team competition called "Everyone Can Build."
A Competition That Drew More Than 1,500 Builders in Weeks
The competition Galetti built the submission app for challenged employees to build an app or tool solving a real problem using AI, explicitly requiring no technical background. Within just a few weeks, more than 1,500 people on her team were building. The results genuinely impressed her. One employee built an app that turned a nearly four-hour manual process into a one-second automated check, saving tens of thousands of hours annually. Another created a desktop pet named Momo that keeps tasks, reminders, and shortcuts accessible with a click.
Amazon's Internal AI Tools at a Glance
Tool | What It Does |
|---|---|
Kiro | AI development tool; describe what you want, it plans, writes, and tests it |
Amazon Quick | AI assistant for data questions, research, and automated workflows |
Aza | Internal AI assistant for HR questions, benefits, IT, meeting rooms |
Future Ready 2030 | $2.5 billion commitment to prepare 50 million people for future of work |
Career Choice | $1 billion education benefit, prepaying tuition for degrees and skills training |
The Company's Broader Bet: Empowerment, Not Just Automation
Galetti was direct about what she believes AI tools actually do to a worker's capability. "The more you work with these tools, the more natural the process becomes, and the more you realize they're expanding what you're capable of, not replacing it," she wrote. That framing extends to how Amazon has restructured internal development work more broadly: as non-technical employees build more internally using tools like Kiro and Quick, the company says its dedicated tech teams are freed to focus on larger, more complex work rather than smaller internal requests.
Real Money Behind the Skills Commitment
Beyond internal tools, Amazon detailed a genuinely substantial financial commitment tied to workforce preparation. The company's Future Ready 2030 initiative represents a $2.5 billion commitment to expand access to education and skills training, aiming to help at least 50 million people prepare for the future of work, spanning K-12 programs like Amazon Future Engineer through apprenticeships including a Mechatronics and Robotics program where graduates reportedly earn up to 58% more than typical entry-level starting wages. A separate $1 billion commitment funds Career Choice, Amazon's tuition-prepayment education benefit, with a goal of upskilling another 500,000 employees globally in areas including cybersecurity, software development, logistics, and renewable energy. Amazon also covers the full cost of one AWS AI certification exam per employee annually.
This positioning offers a notable contrast to the pattern we've tracked closely elsewhere this week, including Meta's own secretly abandoned plan to replace thousands of staff with AI agents, which collapsed amid employee revolt and disappointing productivity data. Amazon's public messaging deliberately emphasizes AI as expanding individual employee capability rather than replacing headcount outright.
Why This Matters for Business
Galetti's account is worth understanding for any business currently developing internal AI adoption strategy, particularly the specific framing choice between positioning AI as empowerment versus replacement. Amazon's approach, giving non-technical employees genuine building tools while simultaneously investing billions in formal skills training, offers a concrete template for companies trying to avoid the kind of employee trust erosion that derailed Meta's more aggressive automation-first strategy.
For businesses evaluating internal AI tooling investment, the specific example of a 25-year-removed-from-coding executive successfully building functional software within hours is a genuinely useful data point on how far no-code and AI-assisted development tools have progressed for non-technical users specifically.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much code did the Amazon SVP write using AI?
Beth Galetti, Amazon's SVP of People Experience and Technology, wrote more than 100,000 lines of code using the company's AI development tool Kiro, despite not having worked as a professional developer in 25 years.
What is Amazon's Future Ready 2030 program?
Future Ready 2030 is a $2.5 billion Amazon commitment to expand access to education and skills training, aiming to help at least 50 million people prepare for the future of work through programs spanning K-12 education through professional apprenticeships.
What AI tools does Amazon give its employees access to?
Amazon employees have access to Kiro for building software using plain-language descriptions, Amazon Quick for data research and automated workflows, and Aza, an internal assistant for HR and workplace questions.
The Fast Version
Amazon SVP Beth Galetti revealed she wrote more than 100,000 lines of code using the company's AI development tool Kiro, 25 years after last working as a professional software developer, part of a broader push giving non-technical Amazon employees direct access to AI building tools. An internal "Everyone Can Build" competition drew more than 1,500 participants within weeks, with employees creating tools ranging from major workflow automations to internal productivity apps. Amazon paired the tools rollout with a $2.5 billion Future Ready 2030 commitment to prepare 50 million people for the future of work, positioning AI as expanding employee capability rather than replacing jobs outright.
