Amazon

Software Development Engineer II

Working on enabling billions of customers enjoy their shopping journey on Amazon, directly from Search

Software Development Engineer I

- Delivered an automated filtering and auditing system for Amazon's wearable products, entirely managed with a single infrastructure based on AWS CDK (Lambda, Cloudwatch, S3) with Typescript, as well as internal processing platforms.
- Created ETL jobs based on Spark, with queries being exclusively managed in code with Java and Scala, allowing to have unit and integration tests in an full CI/CD fashion.
- Finished with 1st place in GraphML mutagenic classification task, top 0.3% in product matching task with multimodal tabular data, top 2% in NLP product safety identification task, all of which were internal machine learning competitions across Amazon, worldwide.

Software Development Engineer Intern

- Developed a large-scale image processing data pipeline for fashion-related items by creating and managing AWS resources such as EC2, Lambda, SQS, CloudWatch, DynamoDB and S3 with the AWS CDK and TypeScript.
- Reduced by x60 the processing time of images by parallelizing the execution of Python jobs and taking advantage of AWS Step Functions and AWS Batch processing.
- Delivered an automated and asynchronous pipeline workflow by adding CI/CD as well as unit and integration tests.

Air Liquide

- Contributed to the retro-engineering of an internal reporting solution by identifying key business partners and analyzing 193 reports through Google Apps scripts and Excel processing. 
- Improved customer experience by producing fully operational documentation for a principal client software and by interpreting end-user’s needs with Google Forms and Google Slides. 
- Increased back-end performance by inspecting the frequency and time of execution of SQL reports.

Solution & Data Intern

Envato

I have done freelancing on the Envato platform which consisted in Photoshop actions and Designs.

Freelance

SDE & AI @Amazon | Simplifying software engineering, system design, and generative AI | Building Hungry Minds: the newsletter to stay ahead in software 👇

Tell me about the last time you felt growing as a software engineer. Really.

𝙽𝚞𝚕𝚕𝙿𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝙴𝚡𝚌𝚎𝚙𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗? Here's why:

We all face information overload as software engineers. 
There's too much content and too little time.
You have to stay relevant, but it's hard.

Right now, you're either working or taking a break.

You are hoping to get a dopamine shot from scrolling your feed.

You can find:

💡 A practical tip to implement
📚 An inspirational quote
😆 Something funny

And then what?

→ Scroll past it? 
→ Forward it blindly to a friend?
→ Forget about it in the bookmarks?

The harsh truth: nothing.

What you consume passively doesn't make you learn.

How do I know?
It was the same for me for years.

How do you stay updated with AI, stay relevant in the job market, and continuously grow?

That's the problem I set out to solve with Hungry Minds - a free weekly newsletter to help software engineers learn and stay updated, without the noise.

I'm doing that by:

1. Writing to you daily on LinkedIn to 40K+ followers and over 5M impressions last year
2. Compressing 1 week of software deep dives and trends in 1 free newsletter issue
3. Sharing my thoughts and learnings being promoted to SDE II in 1.5y at Amazon

If that sounds interesting, check out Hungry Minds or DM me! I'm always down for a chat.

Save 50+ hours of your week here: 𝗵𝘁𝘁𝗽𝘀://𝗵𝘂𝗻𝗴𝗿𝘆𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀.𝗱𝗲𝘃 (6K+ engineers from startups to big tech are reading already)

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

My career background:

I'm currently an L5 software engineer at Amazon in Madrid, working on core Search CX and Personalization. 
In 2022/2023, I delivered 2 successful billion-scale projects with multiple teams across different time zones.

I have worked with multiple code languages (although this doesn't make a difference), and with tech stack in the lines of AWS CDK, React applications, scheduling systems, backends with GraphQL, and simple AI applications.

My education background:

- I finished a Master's in Machine Learning and AI with l'Ecole Polytechnique and IPP
- I completed a Master's in Computer Science and Data Science with ESILV Paris
- I got a Master's in business development and marketing with EMLV Paris

Alexandre Zajac

You can’t catch fish with a broken net.

And you can’t ship a product with a broken pipeline...


When tickets dry up or the market slows down,
most engineers take a nap.

But the senior engineer?
They see an opportunity.

They use that time to build velocity for later.

While others wait, they:

↳ Refactor that legacy module.
↳ Finally fix the recurring tickets.
↳ Fix the flaky tests slowing down CI.
↳ Automate the manual deployment steps.
↳ Update the documentation no one reads.

Don't wait for the "perfect time".
It never comes.

The storm IS the perfect time.

Build the net now. Catch the fish later.


What do you think?


~~~

👉🏻 Join 50,001+ software engineers getting curated system design deep dives, trends, and tools (it's free):
➔ https://lnkd.in/dkJiiBnf

~~~

If you found this valuable:

👨🏼‍💻 Follow Alexandre Zajac
🔖 Bookmark this post for later
♻️ Repost to help someone in your network

SDE & AI @Amazon | Building Hungry Minds to 1M+ | Daily Posts on Software Engineering, System Design, and AI ⚡

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Engineering Leadership

Writing one of the fastest growing newsletters for engineers and managers. The goal is to help everyone to become great engineering leaders.

Become a subscriber:

Founder & Author

Maven

Teaching a highly-rated (4.9) top engineering course. 

In the course, we particularly focus on the development of much needed people / communication and leadership skills in order to grow from engineer to leader.

You can join here:

Course Instructor - "Senior Engineer to Lead: Grow and thrive in the role"

gregorojstersek.com

I mostly work with startups and scale-ups to build up great engineering organizations, build MVPs or scale the engineering org. My expertise is in aligning the business vision with technical solutions and building a high-performing engineering org.

Here are all the options to work with me:

Fractional / Interim CTO and Tech Advisor

Zorion

Leading the Software Development of the Fintech product from idea to the launch and growth to 10k+ users. Managing a fully remote Agile cross-functional team in various different time zones. Managing the tech direction, culture, setting the right processes and continuously improving them. Aligning all of the tech initiatives with org-level (business) goals.

Chief Technology Officer

Streamlined the software development process from sporadic to highly efficient, aligned with business goals. Led the transformation of the Technology department with a clear definition of roles and responsibilities. In charge of hiring and building up the tech department for the business needs. Technologies: React, React Native, Python, FastApi, Hasura, PostgreSQL, AWS.

VP of Engineering

ready2order

Managing fully remote Agile teams that are responsible for different products including the core POS application as well as internal middlewares for business processes. Responsible for Engineers, QA, DevOps as well as Delivery Managers. In charge of hiring and building up the teams. Coordinating with key stakeholders for different projects. Providing coaching and mentoring to direct reports.

Head of Engineering

ZenGRC

Managing fully remote scrum teams located on various different time zones and 20+ direct and indirect reports. Managing the direction, culture, setting right processes and improving them. In charge of growth of the teams and hiring. Working directly with team leads - providing coaching and mentoring. Coordinate deliveries across different departments.

Engineering Manager

Building features on the Risk and Compliance Management platform used by enterprise companies worldwide with technologies such as Vue, React, Python, Node.js to name a few. Leading a fully remote scrum team on building next-gen products. Coach and mentor engineers on the team. Managing the direction of the team and improving processes to optimise deliveries.

Senior Software Engineer, Team Lead

Sibit d.o.o.

Building web applications, e-commerce and other web solutions with technologies such as HTML, CSS, SCSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, TypeScript, Angular, PHP, MySQL, C#, ASP.NET CORE, SQL Server.

Senior Software Engineer

GO Solutions

Providing services in regards to web, mobile and desktop solutions with different technologies such as SCSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, TypeScript, Angular, React, Vue, Ionic, PHP, MySQL, Node.js, Express.js, MongoDB to name a few. Hiring external experts for the need of particular projects in different fields including Development, Project Management, Marketing, Sales and Copywriting.

Harvey Norman

Web solutions from design phase and all the way to finished developed phase with technologies such as HTML, CSS, SCSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP.

Software Engineer

Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Working on different web solutions with technologies such as HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Javascript, jQuery, PHP.

CTO | Author of Engineering Leadership newsletter (65k+ subscribers) - Helping you become a great engineering leader!

I am an engineering leader with a passion for solving complicated problems with innovative concepts. I love learning about new technologies, sharing my knowledge and teaching others. 

I have a proven record of successfully managing Agile teams, setting the correct direction and culture as well as creating right processes and continuously improving them. I have overseen hiring and building up the teams as well as have strong emphasis on coaching and mentoring to direct reports.

You can reach me at info@gregorojstersek.com.

Gregor Ojstersek

PM: “Can we get a timeline?”
Senior engineer: “Time is… a spectrum" :)

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

CTO | Founder of Engineering Leadership newsletter (175k+ subscribers) - Helping you become a great engineering leader!

There are 3 main routes when it comes to Engineering Leadership:
- Management (Team Lead or Engineering Manager)
- IC (Tech Lead or Staff Engineer)
- Architecture (Software Architect)

I consider these to be starting engineering leadership roles, where people in such roles are expected to be multipliers for others and not primarily contributing by finishing assigned tasks.

And these are the skills you need to develop:
- System Design
- Leadership
- Management (for management path)
- Technical details
- Product/Business
- Communication/Influence

The level of depth you need to go in each depends on which path you take.

To help you with this.

Here are 200+ resources to get better at any skills mentioned above: https://lnkd.in/eRMgZ9Ee

What do I look for in a Senior Software Engineer as a manager?

There are so many different things that make a senior engineer. If I can sum all of them in 1 sentence, that would be:

A senior engineer should be able to independently understand the problem and find the right solution to it.

I am not just talking about technical solutions here. I mean solutions across different areas including communication, collaboration, mentoring and helping others.

And by no means do I mean that you need to have the right answers on the spot. A senior engineer is able to find and gather solutions from various of different sources.

Software engineering is too broad of a field to be an expert in everything or to know everything upfront.

As a manager, I wish to rely on a senior to make good decisions, do the right things and inspire others to do the same.

Learn more how to become a Senior Software Engineer here: https://lnkd.in/dUeAbHqD

Engineers must become multipliers in the AI-era.

The reason?

As tools for development have gotten better, the desired skills for engineers have moved from just pure knowing programming languages and frameworks (expected) to problem-solving abilities and people skills.

But what does it actually mean to be an engineering multiplier?

Being an engineering multiplier means being someone who amplifies the productivity and effectiveness of the engineers around them, not just focusing on their own output, but elevating the entire team.

An engineering multiplier doesn’t just ask, “What can I build?”, they ask, “How can I make everyone around me more effective?”.

And this is what multipliers are doing. They are:
- Improving team efficiency
- Sharing knowledge
- Raising the quality bar
- Enabling better decisions
- Mentoring and empowering others

To learn more, read this article: https://lnkd.in/ezWydu8T

This is how I do a full engineering org audit.

As a Fractional CTO and advisor, one of the common things that I did a couple of times this year was an engineering organizational audit.

I use the same approach as I would use in the first 90 days if I were to start a new full-time engineering leadership role.

1. The first thing I do is to really understand the pain points
In some cases, they have secured new funding and would like to scale and focus on hiring. Another reason may be that the CTO has left the company, and they would like to do a good overview of the current org before making any decisions.

2. The second thing I do is have 1:1s with the relevant people
The 3 main questions I normally ask here are:
- How are you feeling about your current work and projects?
- What do you believe is going well, and what could be improved?
- How can I support and help you?

3. Following, I go through all the relevant parts of the engineering org
I normally combine the second and this step together, as I am able to ask much better questions if I understand certain parts much better. I go through the documentation, check the codebase, overall architecture, and also assess all of the different parts:
- Hiring
- Culture
- Continuous growth
- Knowledge sharing
- Planning and alignment
- Onboarding process
- Release process
- Development process
- Incident management process
- Security

4. Provide suggestions for improvements and present the findings
I make sure I note all the important info in the board and finish by providing my suggestions for improvements. After I have everything prepared, I present my findings together with my suggestions.

To learn more, read my latest article: https://lnkd.in/e35MCdPx

Included in the article:
🎁 Checklist For a Great Engineering Organization
🎁 Board For a Great Engineering Organization

I've checked OpenAI's report on the state of enterprise AI.

They surveyed over 9000 people from various fields in 100+ enterprise companies. Plus, they shared the data on the usage of their services.

Some interesting insights:

- Users report saving 40–60 minutes per day using AI tools

- Australia, Brazil, the Netherlands, France, and Canada are above the global average in the number of paying business customers of OpenAI (Australia by far in the first place)

- ChatGPT message volume grew 8x and API token consumption per organization increased 320x year-over-year (from November 2024)

To learn more, tomorrow, I'll be sending out my full thoughts and insights on the report.

To not miss it, join 175k+ engineering leaders here: https://lnkd.in/eNSKBMUf

Do enterprise companies even use AI?

This was the question that came up frequently in some of the conversations I had with engineers and engineering leaders across the industry.

Ever since the increase in popularity of AI tools → many people have been doubtful regarding security, sharing sensitive data, and overall compliance factors regarding the usage of such tools.

This has been especially prevalent in enterprise companies, as many have previously chosen to restrict such tools.

But now OpenAI has published their report on the state of enterprise AI, and one thing is clear to me:

A lot more enterprise companies are using AI tools these days -> there has been quite a big increase in usage in the last 12 months.

Learn about the state of enterprise AI in my latest article: https://lnkd.in/eJ7BBsa5

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Gregor Ojstersek

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taplio

The Battle

Alexandre Zajac

Gregor Ojstersek

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Alexandre Zajac's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreAlexandre Zajac's LinkedIn Performance