A much needed update .. Week One Complete [5/28/2011]

I finished my first week working at Amazon and all I have to say is that it is AMAZING.

I flew into Seattle on Saturday evening with my friend from home.  We realized that we live about an hour and a half walk from each other so we decided to go our separate ways for dinner.  I didn't know anyone or anything in Seattle so I figured I'd just go out and try to meet some people and find somewhere good to eat, as I wasn't really paying ;)  Walking around for a half hour I ended up at a mall (about 10 minutes from my apartment) and met some people and got some good food.

I almost forgot to mention my apartment is really nice.  It's a studio apartment in downtown Seattle and there is so much nearby.  Pikes market is a 5 minute walk, The Space Needle is a 10 minute walk, downtown is a 10 minute walk, and most importantly Amazon is a 15 minute walk.  Everything is close by and there are so many other interns.  I left my door open and met about 5 other interns living on my floor.

Space Needle

Pike Place Market

The first Sunday I was here, I woke up at 8am and couldn't get back to sleep.  So from 9am until 6pm I spend the day walking around and exploring Seattle.  The people here were very nice and anyone I talked to was willing to give me information and help as needed.  I hit up the big "tourist" sites, and actually walked to Amazon's campus on three separate occasions, with different people of course.

First Starbucks

I'm starting to realize this is going to be a long post and I apologize.

The first day at Amazon was awesome.  We got there around 12:30pm (start at 1:00pm) and got split up into groups.  The kids in my group were pretty cool and people came from all over.  After going through all the paperwork/information we got our laptops, a teeshirt and a pretty cool bag.  I hope Troy doesn't mind but I'm stealing his picture and posting it below (replace his ID picture with mine):

I met my manager and team after orientation.  I'm pretty sure I'm on the coolest team at amazon.  I'm on the Kindle Offline Retail team which deals with, well you guessed it, Kindles sold offline.  You may not think there is too much of a difference but the process to sell a Kindle in BesyBuy is very different than selling it on Amazon.com.  There are a lot of software differences too, which is why Amazon hires software developers.  I don't want to say anything I'm not supposed to so I will leave it at that, but I'm really excited about my project.  My manager is really nice and seems really smart.  My mentor is probably the coolest guy I've ever met.  He's young and really smart and a really nice guy.  We get coffee everyday around 2:00pm with another guy on the team and we have lunch planned for next week!  One other thing that's kind of cool about working on the Kindle team is that we have special restrictions and unless you work for Kindle you can't get into out building.

I want to mention that the atmosphere in my office is awesome.  Most of the walls are made from a dry/erase type material.  Even the elevators have floor to ceiling dry/erase boards with markers in a basket.  My office is an open room with 5 large desks.  We all just sit toward the center and anyone can ask anyone else if they have a question or comment.  It's really cool and something I would look for in future job searches.  The ability to collaborate easily is something I really like and it's obviously working for Amazon.  I'm not sure if I can take pictures of my office but if I can I will post a picture.

See my facebook page for many more pictures of Seattle!

PS, this was a rough draft and I will add another post or edit this one when I have more time, Frisbee with other interns now!

Slightly Unrelated .. Acceptance to Massachusetts Institute of Technology [4/19/2011]

This week the MIT admissions staff finally released the transfer decisions.  The reason I say finally is because I had applied as a transfer student to MIT for next semester (Fall 2011) back around Christmas.  I was told that the decisions would go out in early April.  Now based on several other time estimates, I knew this estimate would be a little off but I expected to hear by the 15th, right?  Wrong, we were told on the 15th that the decisions would be mailed on the 19th.  Okay, another weekend of waiting, not too bad...Then came to great news.  I had been accepted to MIT!  This still takes me by surprise and I'm really excited every time I scroll by my acceptance email.  I was honestly pretty shocked when I read the email congratulating me on my acceptance.  I had been going back and forth between thinking I was a strong candidate to just another student, but in the end things worked out.

I have a few friends at MIT and know more people in the Boston area, so I figure it won't be too hard to adjust if I decide to go.  I really like studying and working my butt off, so MIT might be the right place for me.  Not to mention, MIT's located in the Boston area which has it's pluses.  Among those, it's a 75% shorter commute from home.  This means a lot.  I know my family would like the shorter distance, especially my really close niece.  Hi Meg :)

I have not yet made up my mind as to whether or not I will be attending MIT in the fall.  I won't go into detail here but I really like RPI and it's a great school.  I didn't put too much thought into what would happen if I got accepted because I didn't want to get my hopes up, only to be let down; therefore, I still have a lot to consider.   I wouldn't have been too disappointed if I got rejected, and a few times wished that were the case so I wouldn't have to make such a hard, life-changing decision.  But now I do have to make that decision and it's not an easy one.  I know it might be a no-brainer for some, but not for me.  Now time to figure things out...

UPDATE:
I have had some time to figure things out and I've made the decision to attend MIT in the fall.  It actually ended up being a very easy decision.  Since writing the original post I have talked to and listened to anyone that would give me a few minutes.  I've received conflicting opinions from different professors and advisors which was honestly a little surprising to me.  I thought most of my professors would be on the same page.  In the end it came down to me just really wanting to go to MIT, which I do.  I'm ready to work harder than ever and I know it will probably be the most difficult thing I ever do.  Only time will tell but the decision has been made.

Group Assignment .. The Kindle Team [3/23/2011]

Today I received an email from the recruiter I have been talking to.  She said that I have been placed on the Kindle team.  I am really excited about this for several reasons.  First, this was my top choice.  I was asked to pick three divisions that I would like to work on.  I chose AWS (Amazon Web Service) and Digital as my top two, being equal.  I chose Digital (which includes the Kindle) because of the hardware software interaction it provides.  This interests me but I do not know yet if I will have any hardware interaction at all.  Even if I don't work with hardware I still think it is one of the "cooler" groups to work with especially as it's new technology and rapidly changing.  Another reason I'm excited is because I know another intern working on the Kindle team.  We might but probably won't be working in the same group; it's still cool to know someone who will be working on a similar team.  Lastly, I'm relieved to know that I have officially been assigned to a team; one that I'm really exited to be working with!

I'm really excited to finish this semester and begin the summer working as an intern at Amazon in Seattle (I've actually been counting down the days).  The email today reminds me how much fun it will be to work this summer and I'm especially happy to be working on the Kindle team.  If you still don't know what a Kindle is, check it out here:

The Good News .. Job Offer and Acceptance [3/4/2011]

I have been anxiously waiting to write this post.  As you know may know if you read my last post, I had my fourth and final phone interview on Friday.  I knew it was my last chance to prove myself to amazon but in preparation for my other interviews I really didn't do anything that helped me, so I kind of just waited for it to happen(even though I actually had to run home from Differential Equations lecture to be able to answer my phone in time).  I got off the phone with the interviewer with the best feeling in the world, knowing I had nailed the interview.

I had just finished up a week of exams as well as a few other interviews.  All of this was stressing me out.  After doing some homework I went to see "The Adjustment Bureau" with my roommate.  I got back to my computer and opened my email.  I was thrilled to see an offer letter from Amazon.com in my inbox.  This took me by surprise because I had gotten off the phone with the interviewer only a few hours earlier, but I couldn't have been happier.

I could not wait to call my family and a few friends and tell them the good news.  Amazon had been my top choice since the fall of this past year and everyone knew that.  I hadn't put much thought into it before beginning this school year but I knew I wanted to work at Amazon for a while.  The hardest part may have been calling all of the other college recruiters to turn down other job offers as well as lingering interviews.  They mostly understood,except for one, which turned out to be a pain.  I had a while to accept the offer from Amazon, but ended up accepting it the day after talking to the recruiter.  This was really a no-brainer.

So it's official, I will be working in Seattle, Washington this summer as a Software Development Engineering Intern!  Being from New Hampshire, I will need to somehow get to Washington.  I have tentative plans to drive out there, and see some of the country on my way.  Sure I could fly, but thats lame.  I am especially excited to go out there as I haven't really left New England(New York) in recent years.

And Finally, The Last One .. Fourth interview [3/4/2011]

Getting the email asking to schedule a fourth and final phone interview was more than I could have asked for.  I set this one up, unfortunately, during an exam week.  I think it went well.

I was really excited after my fourth interview.  I had prepared for my third interview more than any other and I felt that there wasn't much I could do for the fourth one.  I realized that preparing for interviews, coding wise, does not help.  They will ask you questions that you will have learned in school or be able to derive from your current knowledge, not ones that will be able to be presented by Google searches, believe me.  Of course, you can find the answers after the fact because you know what to look for.

In my last interview I was lucky to be asked to implement a queue using an array.  Being a computer science tutor and having taken data structures prepared me well for this.  Pointers were all over my initial solution but then I changed them to indices.  Before having to write complete code to implement a queue and handle all of the necessary edge cases, I talked a little bit about backtracking and approximation algorithms.  I did not have to code these, more just general information about projects I've worked on dealing with these algorithms.

Again, This Time a Little Bit Harder .. Third interview [2/18/11]

I received an email asking to schedule a third interview.  This was more than I expected being a sophomore in college and not really having an idea where I would end up this summer.  This interview was more of a question/answer session.  I was asked questions about my knowledge ranging from Linux commands, to pipelining, to efficiency, to design patterns.  These questions were pretty detailed and had substantial follow up questions.  I don’t think I could have “studied” for these questions; they were all over the place.  I felt good after this interview, but I knew that it could have gone either way as there was one topic I had no experience with, and I don’t know if the interviewer had follow up questions about it.  

Here Goes Nothing .. First Two Interviews [1/13/11]

I received an email asking to set up two phone interviews with Amazon.com.  This took me by surprise because I had just started applying for summer internships.  I was, however, extremely excited to be interviewing with Amazon

My first interview went well.  I was asked about general coding and data structures as well as how to reverse a string in place.  Easy.  Then I was given questions on efficiency and big Oh.  Finally I was asked to set up a deck of cards using classes and give the appropriate methods and variables.  

I was a little bit less excited after my second interview but couldn't get the thought of Seattle, Washington off of my mind.  The second interviewer asked me more detailed questions.  The first major question was to read in a list of 10,000 numbers [0,100] and then output the numbers missing from the range 0 to 100.  I initially came up with a binary search tree, later realizing that a hash table would be a better solution.  The next question was to read in a dictionary file and then output all of the words that are anagrams.  An anagram is a word that uses the same letters as another word (e.g. stop,post,tops,etc.).  My initial solution was a map with the key being a sorted word and value being a list of the words which match the key after being sorted.  I realized after, that again, a hash table would be quicker if the hash function was made so that no two keys could be indexed at the same location.  My initial solutions were verbalized but I was asked to complete the programs, syntactically correct, and submit them within an hour.  This was probably the easiest part of the whole interview process.