Inside Amazon Music: Carly Levinsohn ‘24 Reflects on Her Software Engineering Internship
Written on January 16th, 2024 by Naser
Photo by Carly Levinsohn ‘24
This post is part of a spotlight series highlighting the work of exceptional students and alumni. The series aims to facilitate knowledge sharing on topics such as internships, jobs, entrepreneurship, and graduate school.
Today, I have the pleasure of talking to Carly Levinsohn ‘24, who will tell us about her recent experience as a Software Engineering intern at Amazon Music.
Naser: Can you tell us about your role and responsibilities during your tech internship?
Carly: During my Amazon internship, I worked on the Podcasts team within Amazon Music. My software engineering work was focused on app development, namely for the Android platform in Java. I was given a project to build a new feature out from start to finish on full-stack. In the early stages of my development, I was responsible for creating a design proposal I presented to the team with my recommendations of how to achieve this project’s goals at the end of the 12 weeks within Amazon’s infrastructure. The team provided me with feedback on the feasibility of my plan, any adjustments, etc. A few weeks later, I demonstrated a product-in-progress to my manager and another prototype in an informal presentation to the VP of my organization. In between these larger presentations, I collaborated with my mentor and manager regarding user interface and other UX design changes as well as any functionality to add. After further tweaks from discussions about our purpose and future updates for the feature, I gave a culminating presentation to the Product team and everyone in the Podcasts organization.
Naser: How did you find this internship? And why did you select it?
Carly: I found this opportunity on LinkedIn; while I considered other companies for my summer internship experience, however, I chose to intern at Amazon because of its design culture and customer-centric values. Amazon’s genuine interest in innovation and improving their products to achieve the highest standards for their customers made software engineering for Amazon that much more appealing.
Naser: Can you tell us about the interview process? And how did you prepare for it?
Carly: The interview process at Amazon entailed one online assessment and a virtual interview that was both technical and behavioral. My preparation for Amazon involved doing a couple of leetcode questions a day at varying difficulty levels and reviewing/rereading Cracking the Coding Interview. I took notes while reading and would review my notes for short periods of time (~10 minutes) each day. For my behavioral interview portion, I reviewed all the technical experiences I had both inside and outside the classroom. I researched to see what some common behavioral questions I might see in the interview, and I wrote out different key examples of either my leadership, technical projects, etc. I would want my interviewer to know about me that I organized through the STAR method.
Naser: How did the internship align with your academic studies at Colby, and did it provide any unique perspectives or insights?
Carly: At Colby, I am a Computer Science and English Literature double major (and a math minor). My Amazon internship offered a unique technical experience to build a product for an app – something I have not had the opportunity to do in a Colby class. Before the start of my Amazon experience, I was worried that I would not be technically proficient to do app development. However, I was pleasantly surprised that so many aspects of my Colby academics proved to be beneficial. For example, I had to write technical documentation of my project proposal and final product, which felt similar to composing project reports for a CS project or for an English course at Colby. My knowledge of Java from Data Structures and Algorithms certainly came in handy during my coding. The design and problem solving tactics that classes like Analysis of Algorithms provided were at the forefront of my mind, especially in the early stages of design work on whiteboards. This internship was a valuable culmination of many years of coursework at Colby, which was incredibly rewarding. I have returned to campus this year with a passion and genuine interest in full-stack app development after Colby as well as a hope to encourage other students to embrace and pursue opportunities like this.
Naser: What tips would you give students interested in doing an internship in the future?
Carly: Years ago, I would never have predicted I would have had a software engineering internship at Amazon. My best advice is that if any professional, technical, or research opportunity sounds remotely interesting to you, go for it… you never know what might happen! If you are like how I was and do not have a clear idea of what you want to do in CS, I recommend meeting with CP in Davis Connects. He helped me immensely with delineating different career options but also finding opportunities and doing mock technical interviews. If you need a place to look for software engineering internships, this GitHub page is awesome - https://github.com/SimplifyJobs/Summer2024-Internships
If you are looking for a place to get your resume reviewed, the Farnham Writers’ Center will review your resume and has Davis Connects-certified tutors to do so. CP is also helpful with this endeavor. If in doubt, I highly recommend talking to CP!
Naser: You are also a member of the CS Student Advisory Board, can you tell us more about it?
Carly: Yes! The CS Student Advisory Board is a club that is open to any CS or CS-adjacent major or minor to join. Our main goal is to build camaraderie and community within the Computer Science Department at Colby through both social and technical events. The board especially is interested in having students help other students with getting internships, research opportunities at Colby, making friends in your CS classes, anything that helps students get hyped about being a part of this super amazing department!
Naser: What kind of events are organized by the CS Student Advisory Board?
Early in the fall semester, we organized the Software Engineering Panel, where students like myself and other former summer interns at various tech companies answered moderated questions about the experience followed by an open Q+A from the audience. On the social end, the CS Student Advisory Board held a movie night in the Gordon Center with free snacks where students could watch The Social Network. We are also the organization behind the CS Department T-Shirt Contest.
Naser: Is there a website or a mailing list where people can join to stay updated on events organized by the CS Student Advisory Board?
Yes, there is! We email a large number of our events to the Computer Science Department mailing list, csstu, but if you want to be in the loop on when our meetings are, we have a Google group that I can add you to – feel free to email me at celevi24 [at] colby.edu if you want to be added to the mail list.
