Meet the Team: Amplitude Chief Engineering Officer Wade Chambers

As Chief Engineering Officer at Amplitude, Wade Chambers believes in extreme ownership in leadership. He ensures teams are empowered to own their missions and deliver value at every level. Prior to joining Amplitude, he was the Chief Technology Officer and SVP of Engineering at Included Health. He also led engineering at Twitter, TellApart, Proofpoint, Yahoo, Opsware, and Netscape.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Wade, who shared his journey and approach to leadership and innovation. Discover his perspective on navigating a career transition, fostering meaningful impact, and how Amplitude is shaping the future of data-driven decision making.

What is your career mantra?

I love Einsten’s quote: “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” It’s true because most people rush to solutions for quick satisfaction or action. When you take the time to dig and understand what’s happening, you can eliminate many options that don’t deserve consideration.

This principle is invaluable in conversations with founders or executives working on challenges. Breaking a problem down to its root cause and building back up with clear guiding principles won’t always lead to 100% completion, but it will bring you much closer to the outcome you’re striving for.

What is a piece of tough feedback you’ve received?

Early in my career, after some project successes, a CEO suggested I move into a manager role. Two months into the role, one team member quit, followed by another two weeks later. I wondered why this was happening and why the team didn’t see we were making great progress. I talked with one of the senior engineers to get their perspective, and they didn’t hold back with the feedback of “You suck as a manager.” They explained how I was still acting like a tech lead in my previous role, making all the decisions and leaving no room for the team to grow or develop their own skills.

They were absolutely right, and it was the first moment in my career where someone had made something so clear to me. It taught me a vital lesson: Just because you were great at one role yesterday doesn’t mean you’re automatically qualified to excel at the next.

What skill or trait do you value most at work?

Maslow once said, “You either step forward into growth or backward into safety.” I admire people who consistently choose to put themselves in a position that may be uncomfortable. They push through and come out the other side significantly better than they went in. These are the people who make the most interesting colleagues—those who choose hard things and, time and time again, find a way not just to meet but exceed expectations.

What is the best piece of career advice you’ve ever received?

An early piece of advice I received that stuck with me is to embrace the suck. It might not be the most eloquent way to put it, but the message is clear—don’t run from something just because you are uncomfortable. Growth comes from friction, and if you can sit with that discomfort just a little longer, you’ll find straightforward ways to push through and come out stronger on the other side. The key is to not retreat into your comfort zone. By embracing the challenge, you’ll find yourself in a much better place.

What made you interested in Amplitude?

Looking at the environment right now, I see apps being built faster and becoming more complex. With generative AI driving us to consume, process, and act on increasing amounts of data, the need for tools that help us understand, decide, and act will grow. That’s where I see Amplitude playing a critical role. The company has the tools, technology, and people to meet these challenges and shape the next wave of products globally.

Amplitude is uniquely positioned to help businesses navigate complexity and succeed in the long term. There’s work to be done to optimize for the right things, but when I consider the capabilities and the bigger picture of what’s likely to win over the next decade, I see a tremendous opportunity to make a meaningful impact. That alignment of vision, capability, and opportunity drew me to Amplitude.