If this is representative of the Amazon engineering culture, I'm gonna add this to the (already overflowing) pile of reasons I would never work there.
Feeling valued is linked to job performance. And if I notice any of a) a generally interesting piece of code b) the engineer being a boy scout and fixing something in that particular module to make his changelist better c) a novel/comprehensive way of testing the code automatically d) elbow grease to just go the extra mile in terms of doing a great job (without adding unnecessary complexity) I will call it out in the code review along with the regular 'fix this' feedback. As a principal engineer my word carries some amount of weight and I truly want the person to feel good about their work when they deserve it.
Another thing I often do is add a 'thank you for taking the time to do this' whenever someone slightly decreases the amount of tech debt (by refactoring, or removing code/complexity) when it was obvious it wasn't absolutely necessary to get their work item completed. Basically whenever someone shows they're thinking strategically rather than tactical about their work, I want to make sure that person knows that I noticed and that I value that.
People aren't robots, we're all professionals and we all like to feel good about our work.
Feeling valued is linked to job performance. And if I notice any of a) a generally interesting piece of code b) the engineer being a boy scout and fixing something in that particular module to make his changelist better c) a novel/comprehensive way of testing the code automatically d) elbow grease to just go the extra mile in terms of doing a great job (without adding unnecessary complexity) I will call it out in the code review along with the regular 'fix this' feedback. As a principal engineer my word carries some amount of weight and I truly want the person to feel good about their work when they deserve it.
Another thing I often do is add a 'thank you for taking the time to do this' whenever someone slightly decreases the amount of tech debt (by refactoring, or removing code/complexity) when it was obvious it wasn't absolutely necessary to get their work item completed. Basically whenever someone shows they're thinking strategically rather than tactical about their work, I want to make sure that person knows that I noticed and that I value that.
People aren't robots, we're all professionals and we all like to feel good about our work.