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!