About Amy (Chencheng)

Every promotion is an identity rewrite — and nobody hands you the new rules. I’ve done it five times, from IC to Senior Engineering Manager at LinkedIn to Director at Instacart, and now again as I leave corporate to build something new. I spent a decade leading engineering orgs — reorgs, org design, calibration systems, AI adoption — and navigating the cross-functional complexity and politics that come with the role. What I learned is that the hardest part isn’t the job itself. It’s understanding the system you’re inside, especially when the rules quietly change. I coach from that lens. Not frameworks — pattern recognition. Across hundreds of conversations mentoring and coaching leaders, I kept seeing the same thing: high performers already operating at the next level, but not being seen that way. Not because they lack capability, but because they’re being misread — or playing by rules that no longer apply.