What are your responsibilities?
At Amazon, engineers are given full autonomy to complete their tasks and achieve their goals, which in turn is reflected in a wide variety of roles. In our team, engineers are involved in defining product development, planning, analyzing, and resolving customer issues, designing and developing new functionality, operations, and recruiting.
What projects have you been involved in?
During my career in IT, I have worked on quite a variety of projects. I managed to participate in the development of applications for Windows and Android platforms, Java client-server solutions, Big Data & Cloud services. I am currently working on the AWS Cloud Map service.
More details can be found on my LinkedIn profile.
Name the most challenging and interesting project you are proud of.
The most difficult project for me was my first one back in 2005. My colleague and I were porting an extension developed for Internet Explorer into a component for Firefox using C++ and XPCOM technology. It was an extremely challenging task for yesterday's students. Firefox had just been released and there was no documentation or examples available. We had to spend a lot of time prototyping, communicating with Firefox developers, and researching the browser's source code. It took us almost 3 months to get the first "raw" version. This stressful project and its positive outcome taught me to never give up and look for solutions in the most unexpected places.
What specialty did you study at ITSTEP Academy?
In 2005, I graduated with a degree in Software Development, but decided to take an additional course in C# and get a second degree based on the Academy's agreement with OSECU. This extended my studies for another six months.
What role did ITSTEP Academy play in your life?
Studying at the Academy has played a key role in my career. I have found my vocation and I am happy to wake up every morning, realizing that today I will solve some complex problem and will definitely find a solution.
The Academy gave me a good applied base, which allowed me to successfully pass the interview, and later to implement my project.
I am very grateful to the teacher Alex Tumanov for his dedication and the programming course he taught our group. If there were more specialists of this level in our field, we would not experience such a staff shortage.
What advice can you give to students currently studying at the Academy?
First of all, decide whether you like programming. And it is better to do it before entering the Academy. It's not easy work, but if you enjoy it, you will discover huge opportunities in every corner of our planet.
The most difficult point will be the first job - people are reluctant to hire without experience. I advise you to try yourself in the development of open source projects and get your first combat experience there. Also, try to get certified in your main programming language, as most companies use tests to weed out weak candidates.
If you plan to work for industry leaders, you will have to contact customers, as well as interact with engineers from other countries, so take your English seriously.