About
Rivers Wells did not set out to become a program manager. He set out to fix computers.
His Amazon career began in IT support, earning a 100% customer satisfaction rating across approximately 6,000 tickets before being selected for a competitive rotation with Global IT Content Management. That rotation changed everything. It turned out that the part of the job Rivers was best at — and most drawn to — was not resolving the ticket. It was making sure the next person did not need to file one.
From Writer to Builder
The move from IT support to technical writing was the first of several pivots that defined Rivers’ career. Each one followed the same pattern: identify a gap between what exists and what should exist, then build the thing that closes it.
As a Technical Writer, he built Amazon’s global IT content intake model from scratch, processing over 5,300 submissions. He developed a reporting framework adopted at the VP level. He produced video tutorials that accumulated 1.5 million views. And when the pandemic hit in March 2020, he converted 51 articles to WFH compliance in 16 days with zero measurable impact to site performance.
The transition to program management was less a promotion than a recognition of what he had already been doing.
The Work That Matters Most
Rivers’ most meaningful professional work has been at the intersection of data and communication — finding the gap between what an organization knows and what it can act on, and closing it.
As project owner of it.amazon.com, he managed a content ecosystem serving 350,000 monthly readers, using data to drive every significant decision. When dashboard errors were misrepresenting site performance, he identified them, wrote the case for correction, and achieved alignment that added hundreds of basis points to reported metrics. When UX data showed that 20% of site traffic was spread across 32 articles that could be consolidated into 5, he led the project and measured the result.
In his current role, he took that same instinct and applied it to AI. The ICON Data Assistant started as a question: what if anyone in the organization could query operational data in plain language and get an answer in under two minutes? Rivers built the answer.
Beyond the Work
Rivers is also the author of The Fire and the Forge, a 425-page fantasy adventure novel published in 2018 under the name M.R. Wells. Available in Kindle and paperback on Amazon, the book follows a professional con artist navigating a world of scientifically examined magic — and is recommended for fans of The Kingkiller Chronicle, Off to Be the Wizard, and The Dresden Files.
He is a lifelong fan of games, both tabletop and digital, and brings genuine enthusiasm to work at the intersection of technology, storytelling, and interactive experience.
Currently
Rivers is based in the greater Seattle area and is exploring new opportunities in program management, content strategy, AI tooling, and communications leadership. He is available for hybrid and on-site roles in the region as well as remote opportunities.
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