• Sai Chiligireddy has worked with nearly a dozen managers at Amazon.
• The engineering manager once struggled with his performance rating after working under three managers.
• He advises documenting achievements and preparing for meetings to build trust quickly.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sai Chiligireddy, an engineering manager at Amazon's Seattle office. It has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified his employment history.

Amazon was one of my first jobs out of college, and I landed it in 2017 after a year of working at Juniper Networks.

In the last seven years, I have worked with 11 managers — partly due to my bosses switching teams and companies, but also because I have asked to move teams when I stopped seeing growth opportunities or when I realized feedback on my performance was vague.

The first couple of times, I was worried about how frequent manager changes would impact my career growth, and the kind of projects I would get. But it got better during the later switches when I learned to communicate my goals better.

Here are four actions I took to ensure that my transitions between managers were smooth and helped me earn their trust. These pointers helped me stand out and grow fast.

1. Own your career

I have always approached my career with the mindset that I am responsible for it and my manager is a facilitator. That mental mode ensures I am communicating before I am asked to and seeking guidance from people beyond my immediate manager.

I have a habit of spending about two hours each month to reach out to multiple managers at Amazon to ask about how they grow in their careers and get feedback on how I could do things differently.

2. Document everything

I maintain a brag sheet with a log of all my achievements and summaries of all the projects I worked on, including the feedback from my previous managers and team leads and any stakeholders. I set 30 to 45 minutes aside every week or two weeks to make sure I am not missing anything.

There's a lot of mobility in tech. If people you worked with in the past year leave, there is nobody to vouch for your work. My performance rating suffered once when I worked under three managers who all had different perceptions of what I worked on, and I didn't take any active steps to rectify it.

I share this document with my all of my new managers so they have my track record on hand and have context on all of my current projects.

3. Prepare for one-on-ones

When I first started my career, I used to wing one-on-one meetings with my managers. I got very little out of these meetings.

I began taking the initiative to set up introductory conversations with all my new managers, where I share my short-term and long-term goals. I also share the brag document I keep in this call to give them an overview of where I am with my career and what my current projects are.

After that first meeting, I switched to a different format for the rest of our sessions. I borrowed from a book called "The Art of Meeting with Your Manager" and broke my meetings into six sections. I tweak this according to different managers and their preferences.

1. Icebreaker: To ease into conversation.
2. Employee section: I share recent contributions my manager might not have on their radar, challenges I faced, and updates on discussions I have had with others in my team.
3. Manager section: I proactively ask for feedback.
4. Development and growth: We discuss where I stand currently and brainstorm ideas and projects to make sure I am filling those gaps to meet the criteria for the next employee level.
5. Align priorities: We discuss what I should work on immediately.
6. Action items: My manager and I both note down our action items for the next meeting and follow-up on any action items from the previous meeting.

4. Divide and conquer

As I grew in my career, I started taking on more leadership responsibilities. I began supporting new engineers on my team through one-on-ones and set up Slack channels where they could ask for help.

Collaboration with other teams definitely changed. My manager and I divided and conquered. I would take the ownership of five to six teams and my manager would handle three to four.

I started trying to see myself as a support system for my manager instead of someone just working under them.

• The Trump administraion is offering buyouts to members of the federal workforce.
• Employees who resign will have full pay and benefits through September, officials said.
• Some exclusions apply to military, postal, immigration, and national security roles.

President Donald Trump is offering buyouts to federal workers who don't want to stick around under the new administration, according to a letter sent to government employees on Tuesday.

The letter, which was shared by the US Office of Personnel Management, said federals employees had from January 28 to February 6 to decide if they would like to resign under this program.

Those who resign will receive full pay and benefits regardless of their daily workload and would not be required to attend in-person work.

The webpage listed a deferred resignation letter which specifies that employees would complete "reasonable and customary tasks and processes to facilitate" their departure.

The resignation offer was available to all full-time federal employees except for military personnel, US Postal Service employees, those in immigration enforcement and national security roles, and other positions that were specifically excluded by an agency.

The letter said a recent order issued by Trump meant there would be significant reform in the federal workforce, which it said would be "built around four pillars." Those pillars were: Return to Office, Performance culture, More streamlined and flexible workforce, and Enhanced standards of conduct.

Read the OPM’s full memo.

The White House did not respond to BI's request for comment.

Fine has distanced himself from Ron DeSantis, accusing Florida's Republican governor of not doing enough to combat antisemitism.

Bill Weber, a beloved NASCAR broadcaster known for his dynamic commentary, has passed away at the age of 67.

If first baseman Pete Alonso doesn't return to the New York Mets, could Baltimore Orioles slugger Ryan Mountcastle take over for him in Queens?

High winds pose significant risks to residents and travelers throughout the affected regions as the National Weather Service issues wind advisories.

The court plans to release redacted transcripts from the closed portion of a hearing in the Bryan Kohberger case.

• The 2025 Sundance Film Festival is underway, and celebrities have arrived in style.
• Many are opting for trendy, casual, and cozy outfits at the Utah event.
• Others have missed the mark with mismatched looks and daring details.

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival is full of movies and fashion.

For years, celebrities have attended the Utah event in outfits that are simultaneously trendy, casual, and cozy.

However, on occasion, some stars take things to the next level in daring garments and glamorous gowns.

Here's a look at the best ensembles we've seen at this year's event — which kicked off on Thursday and ends on February 2 — and a few outfits that fell short.

President Trump issued an executive order on Tuesday attempting to ban federal funding or support for youth gender-affirming care.

The big picture: The policy is the administration's latest in a series of attacks against transgender people in the U.S.

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• The latest executive order applies to people under 19, categorizing 18 year olds with children.

What's next: Trump directed the Department of Health and Human Service to publish a review of existing literature on best practices for promoting the health of children with gender dysphoria within 90 days.

• The department was also directed to regulate programs like Medicare or Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, essential health benefit requirements and federally funded manuals of diseases and disorders.
• The head of each executive department or agency that provides research or education grants was ordered to take steps to ensure that institutions receiving funding end gender-affirming care.
• The order also calls for removing federal funding from medical schools and hospitals that research gender-affirming care.

Catch up quick: On Inauguration Day, Trump signed an executive order that the federal government would only recognize two sexes, male and female.

• He's since called on the Pentagon to formulate a new policy that would target transgender service members.

What they're saying: Chase Strangio, Co-Director of the ACLU's LGBT & HIV Project, said in a statement: "Today's order lays out a clear plan to shut down access to life-saving medical care for transgender youth nationwide, overriding the role of families and putting politics between patients and their doctors."

• "We will not allow this dangerous, sweeping, and unconstitutional order to stand," added Strangio, who defended access to gender-affirming care before the Supreme Court last year.
• Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement: "It is deeply unfair to play politics with people's lives and strip transgender young people, their families, and their providers of the freedom to make necessary health care decisions."

Reality check: Gender-affirming care is supported by major medical organizations including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association, which all concur that gender-affirming care is lifesaving medical care.

• Drugs like puberty blockers are temporary and reversible and used for both trans and non-trans youth who experience early onset puberty.

Between the lines: Fewer than 0.1% of adolescents received drugs for gender-affirming care between 2018 and 2022, per a study led by Harvard University researchers published this month.

• No patient under 12 years old who were transgender or gender diverse received hormones, the study found.

Zoom out: The Supreme Court, meanwhile, seems likely to uphold a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth following oral arguments last month.

• Since the first legislative ban on youth gender-affirming care was passed in 2021, such legislation has taken effect in 26 states, per the Human Rights Campaign.

Go deeper: Trump's road map for defunding gender-affirming care

Editor's note: This story has been updated with reactions from the ACLU and Human Rights Campaign.

U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan temporarily halted President Donald Trump's plan to freeze federal grants and loans.

The XB-1 stayed supersonic for around four minutes on Tuesday.

The actress revealed a rare comment regarding her soon-to-be husband.

The 'Something Like That' singer was supposed to play a bull rider in a new Netflix drama.

The former 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' star debuted a new look during Paris Fashion Week.

The nation's capital is expected to see mostly sunny skies with increasing winds over the next few days; gusts may hit 47 mph on January 29.

Confusion abounds about who will be affected by the funding freeze, which goes into effect Tuesday evening.

Attorney Joe Tacopina and Deputy District Attorney John Lewin got into a verbal fight during A$AP Rocky's assault trial.

Medicaid serves low-income Americans who often do not qualify for health insurance via their work.

Chicago has filled out the rest of its coaching staff under Ben Johnson.

The new Department of Government Efficiency can't go after Medicare or Social Security. That leaves Medicaid in a vulnerable position.