As anyone in software development can tell you, this does not compute. You cannot do things this way, and any experienced software engineer can tell you it doesn't work.

Besides, it's not how Amazon worked at all. Amazon is famous for having systematically verified ("mathematically proved") how it's core systems operated. Whereas, for example Google only did that in redesigns when the systems had already collapsed once or twice due to scale, not from early on. And even that is superior to how Microsoft or Oracle did it: they bought Google employees and had them design an iteration of what Google is running (yes, is running, not was running. Google redesigned it's core systems ... and then mostly didn't migrate. Borg was never replaced with Omega and the main large system that they migrated to is Spanner. Kubernetes isn't Borg. Kubernetes grew out of Borg's successor. Except Google never migrated away from Borg)

https://cacm.acm.org/practice/systems-correctness-practices-...

I'm sure Amazon had entire departments, much larger than core engineering, just like every other company, where it looked like everything was operationally focused. That doesn't mean core engineering doesn't exist, or does nothing.