When you come from a family like mine, it is difficult to take things for granted. Today, I am working at Amazon and not a day goes by when I don’t feel grateful for the things I have achieved.
My sister, who is an IT professional, proved to be my biggest influence: it was her laptop that got me hooked to the world of computers. I wanted to toy with the device and master it too. I took computers as a side subject in high school and decided to become an engineer. Everyone in my family supported my decision.
I never needed to look far from home when it comes to people who inspire me. My father, for instance, is one such person. He is a hardworking man who has supported our family and fulfilled all of our wishes. I want to walk in his footsteps and want to achieve my dreams for him because he wants that for all of us! I was successful at doing so for most of my dreams, but one that is still unfulfilled is to join the army. For now, I’ll tell you about my dream of becoming an engineer!
Everything about Computer science is about logic and math. I was always keen on these two topics. I remember when I was in school, our teacher used to give us problems. I was among the bunch that had the answer before anyone else. Incidentally, at the beginning of this class due to a misunderstanding, she made me leave her class. Much to her surprise, I topped the batch at the end of the semester. I knew then that I was made for this subject.
When I started college I remember that Amazon came to my campus to hire interns. I used to undermine my abilities so I didn’t sit for the interview. When the list of selected candidates came out my peers with lesser GPA and class interaction than me were selected. It was then that I decided to end my pity party and get my act together!
A friend suggested Scaler academy to me. I was intrigued by the course and took admission there. There were regular competitions at Scaler Academy. They used to give out assignments that helped improve people’s programming skills. I liked how they had created a healthy and competitive academic environment for students to thrive in. I used to study for three-four hours a day for interview prep. When things would get too much, I started gaming and playing FIFA, which helped me clear my head.
Fully salaried adults and fresh graduates used to turn into curious students within the classroom when Pragya Sir used to tell his life story. My mentor Yash guided me through all of my insecurities and thoughts about incompetence. I was a little intimidated when I went for an interview for Amazon. The recruiter informed me that there will be four rounds of interviews. The first few rounds went well for me. However, I didn’t get any response from them which made me join a small start-up. After a few days, I got a response that they wanted to have another interview again. And that’s how I got placed at Amazon. What goes around comes around and I had wanted to work at Amazon since my third year of college. This is a happy story, I guess.
Like everything in life, one has to work hard to achieve the things they want. The real hard work started when I transitioned from Oracle to Amazon. It was tough, I’m not gonna lie, but I received a promotion quite early on in the job. It felt like the cherry on top.
Today, I dream of attaining an executive MBA and landing a managerial position in a few years. The thing about dreams is that we have to dream about ourselves landing up in a situation favourable to us. The world will not facilitate our dreams and make them cozy and liveable for us. We have to mould ourselves to live a life we have built for ourselves. This is what I believe in, and this is what has worked for me in all these years of my life.
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