MS/IM student Adarsh Agarwal discusses his summer internship at Amazon.
What is your research focus at the iSchool?
I am majoring in information management with a focus on data science and analytics.
Where do you intern, and what is your role?
I am currently interning at Amazon-Seattle as a software development engineer intern. In this role, I am working on building software as services and AWS cloud infrastructure to support those services.
How did you find out about the internship?
I found out about this internship during a campus career fair in fall 2019, when I attended Amazon's booth.
What new skills have you acquired?
Some of the skills include building software as a service and working with AWS CDK (Cloud Development Kit) to build scalable infrastructure to support my service. The internship project will help me enhance my design thinking abilities. Amazon interns are given complete ownership of their projects, from requirements gathering to delivery, so ownership and successful delivery are important qualities to gain.
What do you like best about working at the company?
Amazon enforces their fourteen leadership principles. Everyone strongly adheres to these principles, which is a big factor in why Amazon is so successful today. Also, they greatly support the professional development of their interns.
What would you advise current students who are interested in an internship opportunity?
The job application process is almost entirely virtual now and is heavily dependent on a good resume with decent projects and work experience, especially for technical roles. I recommend working on some solid technical projects to build a good profile. Work experience is optional, although it definitely adds brownie points. The University of Illinois Research Park has multiple opportunities that provide both work experience and interesting technical projects.