Nia Robinson '26 - Summer Internship at Amazon Web Services (AWS)

The theme for my summer internship at Amazon Web Services (AWS) was reflect, iterate, and improve.

For 12 weeks, I was a Software Development Engineer Intern on the AWS Resource Explorer Control Plane team. The changes I implemented enhanced state management and reduced overall complexity.

These are my top five lessons from my internship:

1️⃣ Present work-in-progress
Regularly presenting my work, even when it was unfinished, invited valuable feedback and prevented last-minute surprises.

2️⃣ Use your voice
I attended an Amazon Women in Engineering event where the speaker said, "It’s not enough to just have a seat at the table. You also have to have a voice at that table."

3️⃣ Break down complex problems
When faced with an intimidating problem, I learned to continually break it into smaller, more manageable tasks.

4️⃣ Practice transparent communication
Confidently acknowledging when I did not have an immediate answer and committing to follow up showed more professionalism than pretending to know more than I did.

5️⃣ Embrace examples
Leveraging existing structures and learning from others’ experiences can be just as valuable as creating something new. This approach saved significant time and improved the quality of my work, especially when creating my low-level design document.

I'm grateful for the technical skills I've gained, but more importantly, I’ve learned that while performance is important, true success for me comes from doing work that aligns with who I am and what God has called me to do. Thank you, SPIRE, for supporting me this summer through community and summer enrichment funding!