Nathan Thimothe ‘22 is originally from Brooklyn, NY. He graduated from Williams in 2022. He majored in Computer Science and also got a certificate in French. After graduating, Nathan now works as a software development engineer at Amazon, focusing on mobile authentication for Android Devices. For those interested in a career in tech, read more about Nathan’s experiences:
What is your current role and day-to-day tasks?
Some days, he is coding and writing programs; others, he is “on call,” which means he deals with corporate clients who utilize Amazon’s services. These clients would ask for help if they have any bugs/problems when using Amazon software. He also helps other engineers on his team.
He has been working at Amazon for around one year and two months. He did an internship his junior summer and then got a return offer. His first freshman summer, he worked with CLIA as a community outreach intern. Sophomore year he started working in WSO. And the following summer he did his internship with Amazon which led to him working there now.
How have you found working at Amazon?
The reason he enjoys Amazon is “the way software engineering is done.” The collaborative environment that is implemented to deal with bugs/issues completed until the code is shipped “out the door” is enjoyable. Another thing he enjoys is that in Amazon, there is at least one expert in something. So, you can always find someone to ask when you face a bug you’ve never seen before or when you want to know how a code works. Being in Amazon allows you access to these people and the resources they’ve published overtime.
To prepare for industry, Nathan recommends to “get your hands dirty.” Practice with projects you know you will enjoy. If you wanna build a small website or software, then just go do it. You might spend a lot of time just staring at your computer, looking for bugs, but it helps you learn. As a software engineer, you will need to learn how to take code you’ve never seen and spend the time to explore and learn about it. Doing your own projects, no matter how frustrating they may be at times, helps you with this.
What have some of your biggest challenges been?
Speaking about challenges, he says that his internship and later his work had some surprising challenges. In Williams, you have an assignment due and you have the resources (TA hours, office hours, other students) to help you through it. In his internship, there wasn’t someone who already knew the answers for how to complete the projects. Figuring out how to be resourceful, with a combination of asking questions, is a skill he had to develop. When doing a project, you are often the person who is more familiar with the code, and there won’t be someone who can tell you the answers to the issues you face. Another challenge you learn how to tackle is assessing requests you receive before accepting them. As students, we are inclined to accept our assignments because we are required to do them, and we want to prove our ability. In industry, however, when you are given a project and asked if you can complete it. You should learn how to say, “I’ll look at it and get back to you with an answer,” or even give the occasional “No.” You don’t learn that in school because you’ll get a zero for not doing your assignments.