An Unexpected Journey

I've been quiet on the blog front lately, because an unexpected but exciting adventure landed in my lap in late January. I was approached by Amazon for a role, and I freely admit I initially thought the email was spam or phishing! After realising it was very much real, I jumped on the opportunity with gusto.

Through the month of February, I went through the interview process for a role that was initially Sydney based. This entailed a couple of screening interviews, along with the Amazon Loop interview, also known as the onsite interview. That is a series of interviews over one or two days, which is now performed as an online video call. 

I suppose I didn't really have the ego to think that I would be the type of person that Amazon might want, so at each stage of the interview I waited for the inevitable rejection email - which never happened. I kept going through to the next stage! Frankly, I really enjoyed the Loop, I liked the people and really enjoyed the conversations and the challenges posed. I won't say that I felt that I did great on every aspect - it's an interview and nerves can get in the way. I will say that once I realised that I needed to get out of my own way, I generally felt better about how I did.

To my surprise, I was told that I had an 'inclined to offer' result. I did not, however, get offered the Sydney role. Being unused to the Amazon process, I somewhat misunderstood this outcome until it was explained that I did, in fact, have a job at Amazon - I just didn't get the team that I'd interviewed for because they'd gone with another successful candidate, and we only needed to find the team that I'd like to work with.

It took surprisingly little time to go through other roles and locations, and we landed on a role that was open in Seattle. I had a catchup with the hiring manager scheduled, and it was only part way through that discussion that I realised that it wasn't me convincing him on joining the team - it was him convincing me! I really didn't have any trouble in being convinced - it was an exciting role in an cool part of Amazon that I really decided I'd like to work in.

Although it meant relocating to Seattle by myself for some time, with my family staying in Australia - with a number of our children completing studies, moving into tertiary education, and employment - it was an amazing opportunity and incredible adventure that I jumped into with both feet. 

Relocation has its challenges, and so through March and April I navigated these and jumped through many hoops. The final challenge was locking in my visa to allow me to get to the USA, and given the backlog and difficulty in securing Australian appointments, I was fortunate to be able to secure an appointment in Singapore, with a little help from a friend along the way. 

Aside from a small hiccup with Covid, I was able to get to the USA in May and dive into my role. I'm loving Seattle, the job, and the team. There's a lot to learn and get to grips with, but fundamentally I've landed in a role that engages me and makes me excited to get out of bed for!

It certainly means my attention has been somewhat diverted from my open source efforts, but I don't intend to abandon it. Bear with me 😁