My Internship at Amazon

It’s been about a week since I completed my internship at Amazon, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would! I not only grew as a programmer, but also as a person. I did experience many more life challenges than I anticipated, but I’m thankful to everyone who helped me out during these times and now I can look back and see how much I’ve grown this past summer. Just like I did last summer, I wanted to share some of the more eventful days from this summer.

Day -1: Moving In

A day before my internship, I flew from Oakland to Seattle. Just 3 days before, I was finishing up my last final, packing my things from school and going home. After getting home I had to start packing for my summer in Seattle. It all felt so rushed. I’ve never been this far away from home for so long and I was incredibly nervous and anxious about how far I’d be from home and my closest friends. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew that this experience would be good for me.

After landing in Seattle and reaching my new home for the next 3 months, I felt like I was going to have a meltdown. I had no idea where anything was, and it felt daunting to have to figure it out all by myself. I eventually unpacked and met up with a childhood friend who was studying at the university nearby to ease my anxiety.

Day 0: Day 1

I took a ride to Downtown Seattle, where New Hire Orientation was. It was raining and I didn’t have an umbrella (my first day was going very swell). After finding the building (Day 1, because it’s always Day 1 at Amazon), I stepped inside and there was a huge sea of 800+ interns, most of who were guys. There were no familiar faces, and I felt like this huge sinking feeling inside of me like you don’t belong. It was super overwhelming, but I just sucked it up and joined a group of people to talk to. In my head I was thinking about how I was going to make friends if there were this many people. So, I decided to just make a group chat and add people that I met that day. If I wanted to hang out with people, I would just reach out in the group chat and hopefully others would do the same. Most of the people I met that day I never saw again, but I learned that it’s going to be that way for the rest of the summer unless I put in an effort to see people.

After around 7–8 hours of orientation, getting our backpacks and laptops, sitting in on presentations, it was over. Day 1 was done (or so I thought because it’s always Day 1 at Amazon). I had a rocky start but I was hopeful. It was going to be a good summer.

Day 1: First Day at Work

It was the first official day of work, and I got to meet my manager and the rest of the team. I was placed on a team called “AMS (AWS Managed Services) Platform”. I got an introduction to some of the potential projects I would be working on, and continued to wrap up New Hire Training. There was also another intern who joined the team that I was on, and he became one of my best friends at the internship. I finally felt a little bit more at ease about being in Seattle and at Amazon. I decided to go explore Downtown Seattle a bit, and check out the Amazon Spheres.

Day 5: Crisis Control

It was my first Saturday in Seattle, and I was excited to go out and explore my surrounding area. It was a beautiful sunny day, but that morning of, I had got a call about a family emergency that required me to take 2 weeks off of work. I was really sad and upset about what happened, and my hopes for the day kind of got crushed. I also didn’t know how to deal with these sorts of events alone, especially just less than a week of being in Seattle. I’m like “@LIFE why are you doing this to me NOW”. I was already stressed about getting adjusted to work and this new area, and now I had this on my plate. If only I knew that some things would only get worse.

I decided to go kayaking that day with a friend from high school who was also in Seattle to get my mind off things. Looking back, I’m glad I had friends from home and school that made Seattle feel a little more like home.

Day 6: Making Friends?

One of the hardest things about my internship was making friends. There were more than 2,000 interns in Amazon alone this summer and I had to figure out a way to meet people. I wanted to meet and hang out with people. I suggested a small hiking trip and people seemed to be down.

The hike was more of a walk, but I met around 20 new people that day, and it was pretty fun. Again, I haven’t seen most of the people I met after that hiking trip, but I accepted the fact that that’s just how it’s going to be while interning here.

Day 12: Actual Hiking

I discovered that Washington has an abundance of hiking trails. A friend I had gotten lunch with earlier in the week told me he was going to go hiking at Lake Colchuck, and I basically self invited myself and told him to let me know if there’s space in the car because I would love to see those views.

I forgot to ask how large of a hike it was and realized it was a little over 5 miles (uphill?!) one way when I got there. O h g o d. The last time I did this sort of hike was more than 2 years ago. I was so not ready for this and I did struggle the entire time when going up but the views were worth it and I was proud of myself. I enjoyed hiking, it gave me time to reflect, process things in my life, step away from my phone for a day, and be surrounded by the beauty of the world. I was excited to do more of it.

Day 20: Discovering Good Food

I decided to go to Pike’s Place and try some of the foods there. My favorite ended up being Beecher’s cheese, and every time I went to Pike’s Place after that I never left without getting their “World Famous” mac and cheese. Later this day, I went to a UC Berkeley at Amazon meetup, and some of the people I met there became some of my closest friends during the internship. I’m glad I met them and I’m looking forward to keeping in touch with them when we go back to school.

Day 22: Cooking!

For some reason I found my first attempt to cook pasta really funny. It was 9:30 PM, I wanted pasta for dinner, and I was going to make it. As I was draining the pasta, I accidentally let go and it all fell on the sink. This describes many of the mistakes I made during summer as “pasta in the sink” moments. I try something, I fail, and I’m too stubborn to let that failure get the best of me. So, I tried again with some new pasta, and I had a wonderful pasta dinner at 11:15 PM.

Day 28: Breaking the glass…door?

Another challenging thing about being an intern on my team was that I was the only girl, and initially it was kind of weird. I’ve never been the only girl in a room. Yes, I’ve been one of few many times, but never the only one. I asked one of my coworkers to connect me with some boss women in tech, and I met her and we had an amazing conversation about women in tech, fun things to do in Seattle, and random girl talk. It was so uplifting talking to a woman in the workplace after so long.

On a side note, today was a couple of days before my flight to India. I was nervous about traveling internationally solo. Also, I burnt my finger at work (it turned purple) and somehow the glass in my home in CA broke (?) so I had to call the police and deal with that. If this is what being an adult is then I don’t know how I was supposed to deal with this much stuff at once for the rest of my life. Adulting is h a r d.

Day 32: Off to the Motherland

I went to India and it was such a fun time! I got to see my family from all over during the 2 weeks I was there. It was nice to slow down, accept the emergency and come up with a plan for me to move on, and spend time with people who mattered so much to me. I felt so happy and at peace.

Day 48: Khalid

The day I landed in Seattle after coming back from India, there was a Khalid concert in the evening that I decided to go to. I contemplated whether this was a good decision considering I would be jetlagged and there were only 6 hours between the time I landed and when the concert started.

I decided to YOLO it and go, and I’m glad I did. I told myself that I shouldn’t let things get in the way if I want to go out and do things. I did suffer from major jetlag but I don’t regret going at all.

Day 58: Girls Who Code

I spoke to the Girls Who Code program at Amazon! Probably the only time I’ve been surrounded my so many women in such a long time. My presentation was similar to last year’s but in addition, I included some portions inspired by Melinda Gates’ book, Moment of Lift. I think that the most important thing I shared with the girls was for them to understand their worth and understand all the great things they deserve in their lives.

Day 68: Portland!

I’ve never been to Portland before, and going there was one of the things that I wanted to do on my bucket list. Me and 4 other friends went for a weekend trip, and it was a good time! Portland is an extremely cute and quirky city and I would definitely recommend going. We went to Saturday Market, Downtown Portland, Rose Test Garden, Pittock Mansion, Powell’s City of Books, the Hawthorne area, and Multnomah falls. Also, the 0% sales tax is amazing.

Day 79: Final Presentation

Things are wrapping up! I’m so happy with how my summer went, and although there were so many ups and downs, I grew as a person and I was proud of myself. I spent my last couple weeks meeting up with people that I had met throughout my internship and wrapping up my project. For my final presentation, I talked about my project but also included a portion about my life as an intern living in Seattle. This was a risk for me to take because a lot of people were not expecting me to be vulnerable about my personal challenges or even talk about anything besides my project.

It’s important to me to talk about these things because my life during the internship was more than just the project. This portion added personality and the “Maitri vibe” during my presentation, and for the most part, it was very well received. I did know that some people still disagree with my choices and the way I went about my presentation, but I realized that a difference of opinions is okay. I’m grateful that people appreciated the risk I took and the humanity I added in my presentation.

Day 80: Bye Bye Amazon!

I walk in on the last day, my “last Friday” at work and it was a very weird feeling. My last commute to work, getting my daily cup of green tea with lemon every morning, making morning conversations with people on the team, standup, team lunch :(. I was going to miss everyone so much! There were a handful of people that were so generous with their time and were always there for me inside and outside work, and I’ll never forget that. I’m so thankful to have spent my summer in a different place and met the people that I did.

I wanted to thank everyone who made this experience so special for me (you know who you are) and while it’s always hard to say goodbye I know that we’ll cross paths soon enough. It’s always hard to leave things you’re so accustomed to and move on to the next chapter of my life (which is my last year of college!) but as one of my mentors would always say, “that’s the way life goes”. ✨

There’s so much more that I wanted to share about this summer but that would have made this post way too long. If you’re interested in learning more about my experience or sharing your own (I’d love to hear about them) feel free to leave a comment, a private note, or send me a message over LinkedIn. Good luck to everyone starting school and wrapping up their internships. I’m rooting for ya!👊🏽