How To Write a One-Pager like an Amazonian
How writing can clarify your thoughts, up-level your career and make you a better communicator overall.
Total silence. Total frickin’ silence. What is the most jarring thing about joining Amazon? Documentation.
When you join a meeting at Amazon it’s not uncommon to spend the first 15 minutes in complete silence as each person around the table reads the “One-pager” or, “the Six Pager” or some other form of documentation. If you’re not used to this it can be the longest few minutes of your life as you sit wondering what everyone’s doing or thinking…wondering when the silence will end.
Once everyone’s ready the questions come. This is when the meeting actually starts. If you’re the author it’s like defending your dissertation. If you’ve written a good document your job is simple. If it’s poorly constructed you’re now facing an uphill battle and the likelihood of a second or third meeting with the same group.
Foundations in Writing
The art of writing a well-structured document is something I have yet to master but it’s foundational to the Amazon culture.
In my early tenure, I needed executive buy-in for a set of changes I was driving. A colleague recommended I write a one-pager to help frame the discussion with senior leadership.
"Just one page?" I asked naively.
He smiled knowingly. "It's probably the hardest page you'll ever write."
He wasn't kidding. That single page became three days of distilling complex technical concepts into their essence, removing fluff, and ensuring every word earned its place. But when the discussion finally happened, I was shocked at how effectively it focused the conversation on the core issues.
What Makes Amazon's One-Pagers Special?
An Amazon one-pager isn't just a short document—it's a carefully crafted artifact designed to do several things at once:
Force clarity of thought: When you only have a page, every word must count.
Eliminate PowerPoint theater: A pure focus on the message. No hiding behind fancy animations or distracting visuals.
Create a shared understanding: Everyone starts with the same information.
Drive to decisions: The format demands recommendations and clear next steps.
Document the decision for posterity: With a well-crafted document, future teams can look back and understand the information the team had when they made the decision.
Why Engineers Should Master Writing
Engineers who advance aren't necessarily the strongest coders—they're the ones who can communicate complex ideas simply. When you can write a solid document it reflects clarity of thought that separates senior engineers from truly exceptional ones. The one-pager is your secret weapon.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
Burying the lede: Don't make the reader hunt for your main point.
Technical jargon overload: Can a smart person outside your team understand what you’ve written?
Weasel words: “Many people believe”, “as many as”, “a lot”, "might," "could," and "possibly"—these are all non-specific and should be avoided. They only serve to undermine your narrative. Write with conviction.
No clear recommendation: A one-pager without a recommendation is just a report. Can you read the document and still say “So what?”. If so you’ve failed.
Solutions in search of problems: Start with the customer's problem and work backward, not your cool technical solution.
How to Write a One-Pager Like an Amazonian
In the spirit of up-leveling our little community here, I offer the following as a roadmap to think about when you're writing your next document. Most of this is “one-pager” specific but for a full-blown design document, these pointers can still help. Use your judgment.
Writing is Reading - When you think you’ve finished, take a step back and read what you've written. Imagine the reader has no context on the problem or the solution. Did you write this for a specific person, imagining what they’re familiar with? That's generally bad. Or did you write it for the population at large? That's good! Does the document provide them with all the information they need to understand it? Or are there implicit assumptions of the audience you've baked in? If you’re not sure a simple test is to ask a colleague to read it. They should be able to tell you if it stands on its own or not.
Set the readers' expectations - State up-front what your document is and is not. What will they gain by reading this thing? Give the reader a reason to read further.
Start, Middle, and End - Give your document a logical progression - E.g. Start by laying out the context and what problems exist. Explain relevant constraints and then move to the Middle which outlines how you’ll address the issues in the "Start". Close with any additional assumptions, dependencies, or risks that remain even if you are successful. This is the End.
A “Strong” Edit - Remove any unnecessary or duplicative language. Don't use colloquialisms or flowery language. Remove any "personality" prose. Remove Weasel Words and non-sequiturs. Remove language that is imprecise or superfluous. Make the document as short as possible but no shorter. Stick to the facts.
A meta point to the astute reader: this last paragraph could’ve been shorter if I’d followed my own advice.
Formatting - Stick with the defaults. Remove any unnecessary spacing, headings, or formatting if it’s distracting. Word docs are not PowerPoint so for me, a good doc should look dense on the page. Apply your judgment here, sometimes formatting can really help the structure but don’t go overboard.
TL;DR and BLUF - Consider adding an executive summary at the top of the document. If the reader reads nothing else what is the key message you want to convey? That message needs to be heard loud and clear so put it up front.
FAQ - When one page is not enough… add an FAQ. Include any additional questions or relevant info in an Appendix. This is typically an FAQ but could also be supporting data that is relevant to the main document.
A poorly structured doc reflects poorly on you as the author and will likely not be read.
"Just one page?" I asked naively.
He smiled knowingly. "It's probably the hardest page you'll ever write."
When should you think about this level of diligence? For a One Pager almost always. If it's an informal set of notes or a conversation starter then I probably would take a looser approach but these rules are still generally how I would organize my thoughts.
The Excellence Paradox at Work
Remember The Excellence Paradox? This is one of the places it shows up. Top-performing engineers will agonize over their one-pagers, drafting and redrafting until every word earns its place. They'll worry the document isn't good enough, but that concern is what produces quality.
Just like I mentioned about getting that 98% on a test, you'll find yourself obsessing over that last 2% of clarity. Embrace it. This is the price of excellence.
Start Small and Practice
I created this Substack to get better at writing. I write, I read, I re-write, I delete, I re-organize and I repeat. It’s still a work in progress but just know that you don't need a major architectural decision to practice this skill. Start by writing one-pagers for smaller decisions, share them with trusted colleagues, and ask for honest feedback.
Like any skill, this improves with deliberate practice and Introspection on the feedback you receive.
The Ripple Effect
Mastering the one-pager improves your thinking in other contexts. You'll find yourself speaking more clearly in meetings, writing more efficient emails, and cutting through ambiguity faster.
Communication isn't separate from technical excellence—it's an essential component of it. The one-pager isn't just a document format; it's a thinking tool that will serve you throughout your career.
So the next time you're facing a complex decision, challenge yourself: Can you explain it on a single page? Your future self—and your colleagues—will thank you.
This is a great article, Francis! I shared it with my daughter, in Grad school.
Great read as usual, I will be sharing this.
Interested to hear how you weigh which situations necessitate a one-pager - put succinctly, why write one? It’s touched on here but for the less initiated it might be a helpful addition.