Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career

A candid, relatable, very funny memoir of female ambition and a grueling decade in tech.

What would you sacrifice for your career? All your free time? Your sense of self-worth? Your sanity?

In 2006, Kristi Coulter left her cozy but dull job for a promising new position at the fast-growing Amazon.com, but she never expected the soul-crushing pressure that came with it.

In no time she finds the challenge and excitement she'd been craving—along with seven-day workweeks, lifeboat exercises, widespread burnout, and a culture driven largely by fear. But the chase, the visibility, and, let's face it, the stock options, proved intoxicating, and so, for twelve years, she stayed—until she no longer recognized the face in the mirror or the mission she'd signed up for.

Unsparing, absurd, and wickedly funny, Exit Interview is a rare journey inside the crucible that is Amazon. An intimate, surprisingly relatable look at the work life of a driven woman in a world that loves the idea of female ambition but balks at the reality.

About the Author

Kristi Coulter is the author of Nothing Good Can Come from This, which was a finalist for the 2019 Washington State Book Award. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, was a Ragdale Foundation resident, and has taught writing at the University of Washington and Hugo House. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, New York magazine, Elle, and elsewhere. She lives in Seattle, Washington.