From Liberal Arts Major To Amazon Principal Engineer: Steve Huynh

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2024-11-16 21:30:04

👋 Hi, this is Ryan with this week’s newsletter. I write about software engineering, big tech/startups and career growth. Thank you for your readership; we hit 64,000 readers this week 🙏 🎉

Today’s post is an engineering career story from Steve Huynh who was a Principal Engineer (L7) at Amazon. He shares his story from breaking into tech without a computer science degree all the way to his promotion to Principal Engineer (L7).

What sets his story apart is how he transitioned into software engineering at Amazon without a computer science degree. He also shares exactly what blocked his promotions for us to learn from.

I was a Principal Engineer (L7) at Amazon before I quit in March of 2024. The last team I was on was the Prime Video Sports organization, which was a critical part of a streaming business that serviced hundreds of millions of customers worldwide with low-latency, high-quality live events. I was the most senior engineer for well over 400 people. I’ve launched several lines of business for Amazon, conducted over 850 technical interviews, and I have been awarded 13 software patents.

You might think that I have a Computer Science degree from a prestigious school, but I don’t. In fact, I have an English degree from the University of Washington (Go Huskies!). If you’re wondering how I achieved all that given my background, you’re in the right place.