How a Chance Encounter Led Me to AWS.

When I was studying in Norway, I had a chance to join an AWS user group session. A representative from AWS gave a presentation on different services. At first, I thought he must be a salesperson because his presentation skills were too good. And when he started to answer the questions, I thought, “He must have studied Computer Science, that was a tough question!”. This was the first time I met a person with the title Technical Evangelist.

After I came back home, I kept thinking, “That is the type of developer that I want to be!” So I prepared a presentation to introduce AWS to my classmates at school, but it wasn’t as good as his. My English wasn’t fluent, and there were many little mistakes while showing the demo. It was a very discouraging experience.

However, a couple of bachelor students messaged me, saying it was helpful, and they wanted me to share the slides. Since I put so much effort into the slides (it was over 200 pages), I decided to publish them online and promote my content to all the communities, including the AWS user group in Stavanger.

A couple of months later, I logged into my Twitter account by accident. There were two notifications, even though I had no activity at all.

One person who organized the user group session tweeted my slides, and the evangelist re-tweeted them. So I also re-tweeted them. (Is this how it works?)

It was quite a moment for me because I haven’t been acknowledged by an expert before. I suddenly got super motivated to work for AWS and started searching for all the places where I could work. However, all the branches require either native level language proficiency or a work permit.

This is how I changed my plan to come back to Seoul. I was initially considering settling down in Norway right after graduation. However, I really wanted to work for AWS and participate in or organize the events that they are running. To do that, the Seoul office was the best place for me.

When I told this story during my interview, the interviewer asked me,

“You came back to Korea to work for AWS..?”

“Yes, I did!”

I am extremely lucky to be able to work as an Associate Solution Architect Intern at AWS.

I would like to give a special thank you to Adrian Hornsby. Yes, I think I will have more chances!