October 9, 2024

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The best way to learn how to succeed in the tech internship process is to get advice from older students who have already been through it. In that spirit, we've started a series called Tech Trajectories to tap into the knowledge of former interns, and provide their expertise to current/future interns.

Our next former intern is Alan Casey, who is currently a SDE at Amazon. Alan began his internship journey at HTEC Group in 2022, before working at Amazon in Seattle during the summer of 2023. Alan grew up in the Pacific Northwest and attended Bowdoin College in Maine. He has since moved back to Seattle to start his career with Amazon! He enjoys traveling, hiking, and playing soccer!

A big thanks to Alan for taking the time to answer some questions! If you'd like to nominate former interns to appear on Tech Trajectories in the future, share their contact info with us at internship.playbook@gmail.com!

Our Questions + Alan's Answers

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1. How did you build connections over the summer?

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For my Amazon internship, I did not build any connections beforehand. However, for other job opportunities I reached out to alumni through LinkedIn and tried to get referrals. At the end of the day, luck is a big part of the process—but your opportunities will come.

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2. What values and qualities do Amazon interviewers seek in internship candidates?

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Interviewers want to see how you solve problems: whether you can reason through different approaches and organize your ideas coherently.

3. How did you prepare for the technical interview?

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Completing LeetCode problems (mostly easy and medium—some hard), and being comfortable with algorithmic run times. Learning how to talk through your problem-solving process is crucial. Also, don’t ignore the behavioral interview—it’s quite important that you communicate clearly and come prepared with questions.

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4. What’s your top resource recommendation for students preparing for internships?

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I definitely recommend neetcode.io (http://neetcode.io), it has a great list of LeetCode problems that tackle most of the problem solving methods you will encounter. I used it to verify my solutions and as a way to track my progress.

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5. Can you share more about the project you worked on as an intern at Amazon?

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Last summer, I built an automated system for visualizing financial data for Amazon. I learned about business, finance, big data systems, data flows/pipelines, internal APIs, and worked with several AWS systems to create a better way to understand data.

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6. Did your work feel impactful, even within such a large company?

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It was definitely impactful from an internal sense. My solution significantly increased my org’s understanding of the data, and continues to save my team members several hours of work every week.

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7. What are your best tips for turning an internship into a return offer?

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Focus on learning as much as possible, that is the number one reason you are there. With time, you should gain the necessary experience and skillset to complete your internship project successfully (or at least, make a lot of progress). Build great relationships with your manager, mentor, and teammates—and do not forget your own needs.

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8. What are some unexpected aspects of working at Amazon?

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Although it is such a large company, at times I felt that I was working for a start up. My team was small and focused on building a product vertically, so I had to fundamentally understand the core business & financial needs (which is the foundation of any company) as well as the projects being developed by my team.

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9. Are there any mistakes you made as an intern that you'd advise students to avoid?

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Don’t rely on a successful internship leading to a return offer. A return offer is equally based on company needs, market forces, and luck. For that reason, it’s important that you stay prepared in case you need to go looking for new opportunities.

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10. What is your #1 piece of advice for students trying to break into tech?

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Comparison is the enemy. I was lucky to not find myself in ultra comparative environments because I went to a small liberal arts college, which allowed me to focus on my own path and set of skills. However, anyone can easily get discouraged by comparison (especially online). Focus on your what you can control, which is applying and being prepared for opportunities
when they do show up.