If RTO policies are enforced with strict measurement, tracking, and compliance expectations across employees, why doesn’t the same rigor apply to Cloud leadership (Head of Cloud and his directs)?
GL17/GL18 leaders—many already significantly compensated from prior Amazon equity and long industry tenure—operate with materially less visible accountability, while execution is heavily dependent on engineering teams under them or contracting firms.
The pattern is consistent: delivery is externalized or engineering team , credit is cloud leadership , and accountability becomes diffused.
If operational discipline is the standard, it cannot be selective. It must apply uniformly across all levels—including senior leadership—based on measurable impact, not hierarchy.
Otherwise, it stops being governance and becomes structural protection of the top layer.