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Amazon Class Chat - Braeden Quirante

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Braeden Quirante, a Solutions Architect on the Amazon Unicorn Ranch Team from Austin, Texas speaks to the students and staff at Tierra Del Sol High School!

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here we go good morning everyone this is Brayden Quran and he is a Solutions architect on the Amazon unicorn Ranch team in Austin Texas and he is the Amazon claptrap volunteer who's going to be talking to us today and everyone please welcome break and we are so happy you're here so take it away that yours awesome well I'm glad to be here sorry my name is Brayden I'm Solutions architect here Amazon I'm under unicorn Ranch team which I can explain a little bit later something that they're having me share about myself is that I'm a beginner's longboard trainer so I help people who want to get starting a longboarding start learning I'm excited to share with you I apologize about my screen some texts hopefully this is a fun lesson for you a quick agenda is that they're going to be about 15 minutes sharing with you my presentation have you all seen the presentation before yes yes yes okay one fact nevermind I'm going to skip like I'm going to get straight to the meat of I'm just about me and might my journey in isn't actually born if you don't want that load Saturn. I've got a Fergie's 92 have a burden has gotten louder since we've been teaching at home I've never heard him so loud I got to close the door and move them out of the I apologize about that I have for parakeets and I guarantee they can get pretty loud so hopefully you'll be able to cut this out before you talked a little bit I'm sure about all the difference stairs that Amazon is in so let me just talk just made the harbor quickly want to go through dresslily first time they've been in here so awesome you're welcome quite a few different businesses are so that you could at least be familiar with it first is amazon.com which you may be may have used your parents may have used to get the two day shipping if you have Amazon Prime I won't have you gas but a fun fact is amazon.com sells more than 250 million items on that web now the next business that Amazon is in is entertainment so kind of like Netflix but we release our own original movies and series one of my favorites is upload no for those who have seen these devices or have them these are Voice Command Technology known as Alexa and okay I have my new unit usually she starts talking to me when I say that she works so Alexa can understand what we say and do things license so I can have Alexa turn on the lights open my garage all sorts of things now a fun fact about Alexa and I'll see if I can click the button correctly is that she speaks 8 languages so I can see they're a lot more than a so maybe a handful of in this class will be the ones to be able to add more languages to Alexa writing out the last business that I'll share is the Cloud Web Services which is actually the business that I work for and the cloud for those who aren't familiar you know he's here setting things up in the cloud nuts usually what's a lot of people think of Nick Cloud really is a Datacenter so it's a cluster or a bunch of supercomputers that businesses and people can rent so they don't have to have those super Sears in their house he's a really expensive computer so imagine being able to drive a Ferrari whenever you want that's essentially the same thing but with computers Mexican using the Ferrari of computers whenever you want but about having to buy it's okay so that was an overview of Amazon let me tell you a little bit about my experience which I really enjoyed sharing not because it's about me but because I had almost no technical background growing up as you can see how the kid I I love playing with blocks and Legos and I always wanted to be an architect now you probably have noticed there aren't many Lego or architecture classes in middle school or high school so I asked you to turn to music to develop my creative side down a key Point here is that enter code at all for the first 18 years of my life you know how it interested me but I never felt like I had an acceptable way to learn or btots so a point here is that is never too late to try and I'm about to share with you my college experience how I kind of got into the into technology and why it's never too late to explore that option After High School I went to BYU where I majored in eating so that right picture is a group of us friends attempting to eat 20 lb of curly hi sweet potato fries and tater tots now I am just kidding my first declared major was not eating it look like it's but it was not my first declared major was mechanical engineering and after a couple of weeks I realized you know this is nothing like those like instructions that they usually including the Box a little bit more complicated so I realize this isn't for me and I tried to study to become a linguist I knew English and Spanish I thought I pick up French and Arabic bacon travel the world and do all Sun things all sorts of things but realized you know what's after a couple semesters I don't know if this is a career that I I prefer so I change the major a third time to business school for a while it seems like I have found my now luckily in one of my business class is a student actually made an announcement about it his startup called World Tech Academy and so this is a boot camp which is essentially an intense programming class where people can learn to code in 8 to 12 weeks and hypothetically go get a job afterwards so remember I had interest in going but I've never felt like I had a way to learn it and I thought this is a way to explore that's so I took a flyer sentence I took the course and I realized this is awesome I really enjoy what I do with this know I was 21 at the time and I was just starting to learn a code I know some of you right now are in that python class that was mentioned earlier you're way ahead of the curve and for those who aren't I'm still going to share with you how I was still able to get into the tech world even at the late age of 21 all right so at the time I recognized that the boot camp wasn't quite enough experience for me get a job so I switch my major 1/4 time so I changed it to Information Systems which is like computer science but it's less programming heavy and more business-focused so is that nice beautiful blend of creativity and business there was one problem with this major at least for me that I have to apply to and I actually ended up getting rejected now at the time I wasn't very distraught I had all my family in the medical field I had known close to me that I felt would be a guide me towards a text field or toward a tech job that I thought I was always destined for that was my dream by my recently discovered dream job so luckily the school had counselors career counselors and I also have friends who are he graduated and they were able to guide me to my final major that's in V major by the way Information Technology Sookie take away here first it's never too late to get into the tech industry if you if you're curious and you want to try it out there. way to get in there's always more than one path to get into the text field just because you get rejected or you hit a roadblock one place does didn't mean that you're you're prevented from getting in at all let me highlight reel quickly my my career path I keep looking Alex their young so my first job as in the tech world ever was building dashboards so you can see her on the right side helps build pretty graphs and charts to help the bookstore on campus sell more items so we we make these prices bookstore if you want to sell more t-shirts you can actually put them on the front and you can actually see that they still better so we used information or data to help the business make smarter decisions now my next job was actually the company that was that was a dashboard in company but my role there was automation so don't know used to have to hire a an insurance to copy and paste data from an Excel spreadsheet to a database now that would honestly take a long time I'll probably take six hours or whatever however long it would take and I used to actually I use Python to be able to automate that process so instead of having to hire an intern 6 hours a day to copy paste information manually all that it would run automatically in the middle of the night and in fact it only takes about 3 minutes so that was my second job of in the text field now the third one out the fur Jabba highlights my first job out of college as an IT consultant which is basically a fancy way of saying I go around from business-to-business doing all sorts of Technology projects so I helped automate processes adults graphs and charts for other business adult website I hubs with machine learning now one of my most notable projects was actually building a smart room we're in a hospital so you can see in the picture here a doctor is able to talk with a p without having a tablets or a notepad in between them which makes it a very personal reaction and what the room does as it'll listen to conversation and it'll restore all of the symptoms that adheres prescriptions medical history so I can come in and say Hey doctor I have a pain in my left knee my right ear hurts I'm taking a medication for diabetes and I have a family history of heart problems and the doctor can just listen and have conversation and when he goes back into his room the notes will automatically be on his computer because it was able to record it for him so that was a really that's probably one of my favorite projects now fast forward to present Solutions architect a different kind of Architects than I thought of it as a kid but still just as fun so real quick how many of you all have seen the Lego movie before you can either turn on your camera and razor handle you can use the race and functionality however you want to do that I can type it well that's so sorry it's a great movie I think it's funny we have a few that have seen it's perfect for those who have seen it's my job is to be a master bill that's what it means to be a Solutions architect for those who aren't familiar with what a master builder is if you look at the blocks on the right on master builder is someone who's able to take a bunch of locks that don't really do or look like anything at the beginning and build a really cool solution so I do the exact same thing for Amazon but with technology building blocks it's on the left side are just some of the technology building blocks that Amazon offers they all do different things some of them are storage some of them is databases some of them is being able to use the computer as you would your laptop some of them are machine learning right businesses will come to me and say bring I really want to start this new idea this new product this new service streaming service how do I go and do that and I say all right I understand how to use these Technology Building Blocks let me build them in a way that makes your solution and then I'll hand this blueprints on the right this is called an architecture diet and so I sent you what I do is I understand all of the services on the left side or sorry for all the technology building blocks on the left side and not to be able to make recommendations and give blueprints to customers so they can go and build it so that my favorite part about working with Amazon is actually I get to work with lots of companies in Hindi and industries so I'm not just in the tech field I'm also in the gaming industry almost on the communications industry with zoom I'm in the Stream history with Disney plus and Netflix or the travel industry with Airbnb all of these companies I'm sure where most of these companies I'm sure you've at least interact with one of them if you played fortnite watch Disney quad to watch the office on Netflix while I mean wrong right now so I got to work with a lot of companies whose products touch each of Our Lives individual and I think that's that's really meaningful and valuable to me all right so I'm going to talk real quick and I am curious how many are interested in going into text field and that we're going to do a couple fall to your first one is how many are for sure interested in going as a  else you can like raise your hand and if you're not that's fine no okay how many are kind of on the fence you don't know that you'd be interested in that serve your kind of exploring that you don't really know what's out there I'm curious okay that's fine forgot one that's it maybe a couple other sure that this these these hurdles apply to anyone rides regardless of your sister. I just want to make sure that everyone is aware of what's possible the first one is the tech field is very big has lots of programming language is for those that are taking that computer science class right now learning python you know that's just the one out of many languages and that's fine my recommendation for those that are interested is to stick with one technology break into the industry by getting that first job using that technology and then used jobs explore and expand your interest in other technology related fields so what I did when I was building dashboards or pretty graphs and charts cuz I went to my boss and I said you know what I want to grab this information that we're using self instead of you handing it to me suicide okay go ahead and grab it yourself and that's how I learned SQL which is how I started learning about databases and so I essentially got paid to learn even though I didn't know everything I was using my job to be able to more so then I had enough experience to move into a database database job if I wanted to see the main point here is don't feel like you need to know everything in order for you to just get that first job alright second hurdle is the belief that all tech jobs are 8 hours Coatings if you love coding great there's a lot of jobs out there for you if you don't love coding that's fine there are other ways to be part of the technology industry and I'm here to tell you right now that we want and need people like you there are lots of rolls we're being familiar with code is is grates maybe key but it's not 100% no job I'm going to paste in some positions that I've listed here in the chat so you can go and Google then I'll listen out for the recording system administrators technical program managers technical account managers Solutions Architects it consultant product managers and now going to add one more video engineer which is you experience experience all of these jobs and I won't be able to go until they do not require a ton of coding especially that last one is really focused on making sure that websites are out the really user-friendly and they look pretty so there are a lot of tech jobs with design and business aspects if you're afraid of coding and you don't love coding just know that there's still a job out there in the tech field for you if you wanted to go into it. talk about going to be on the left side I'm trying to I know you did you guys have questions I'm trying to be through this one but here's this last will go ahead and read that Meme on the left okay just want to make sure that that you are getting the time or okay so don't speak for work right this meme on the left unfortunately does happen for those who have been able to read it companies hiring for tech jobs have high expectations which go against that first hurdle that I kind of told you about don't feel like you need to know everything now I overcame this by like doing two things I got a tech job early stuff for me that my college so far people don't wait until after college to get that first tech job find something on campus that's Tech related to do maybe build a website for your parents or yourself or small local business go to personal projects just to something to be able to put it put it on the resume now I also overcame this by applying to jobs I was unqualified for now there is a footnote here that I'll dive into but I'll start by making by certain that job require I'm more of a wish list for companies so this is where the footnote starts right so if a job interest you go ahead and apply granted you need to be prepared if they do interview you and as a general rule I I tend to say I fight you if I need fifty percent have the requirements I'm going to go ahead and apply and I'm going to have to be able to make a case this is why I believe I would be good for the job I may not have all these requirements you're asking for but I have this instead and I believe that I can still make this work so the main point here is dumb reply don't go apply to like a CTO position or anything like that but don't let job requirements tutor you from trying to get a job that you feel you would actually do well with and be able to contribute value to the company all right so I'll summarize with my top three chips remember that you're in control of your career so that doesn't mean to be a work horse from the get-go just be a little bit deliver it's about you career and insured the actions today contribute to the Future that you want tomorrow and do afraid to start it's in a tech job that doesn't sound glamorous or isn't as ideal for you because you can use that role to learn about other aspects while on the job and then move into a different role later now who is that detours happen this kid being being rejected from the college you want to get into into a major you wanted to get into into sometimes you need to take a couple years out to take care of our family there's more than one way to get into the job that you want or even the tech industry so don't feel like you've missed a train if you don't feel like you followed it a typical pap last thing here is that I was 23 when I got first got my first tech job and easy to feel behind when I thought everyone around me was coding since they were kids and I personally have known and I have friends who were English Majors or kindergarten teachers are all sorts of other Majors even space space engineer was able to transition into a technology-related field so would that if you have even the slightest inkling that you might like to work in Tech whether it's now or even after you graduate college never let your lack of experience deter you from getting into Tech all right so real quick I'll put a plug in for Amazon future engineer scholarship every year Amazon towards 100 seniors with $40,000 and a guaranteed internship at Amazon she can find those details ATS Amazon future engineer., this is it a little bit dated of a slide but I think it's still valid URL at least the beginning part so you can find those details at that's website there all right. This points it's Q&A time however you want to handle this we could do it in the chat you can just unmute or however you I get however you want to proceed with that screen share Too Perfect perfect and guys you are all welcome to ask questions I am going to say something to have a plug for my course all of these that Brayden put over on the side for systems administrators technical program manager technical account manager in the Amazon program I teach with adhesive there is there are courses over and above my Amazon edhesive course where you can go in and take any one of these and research it within Pizza in my class to see if it's something you're interested in and if you are there's a 4250 hour course attached to it because you're in my class Amazon employees have access to that you have access to that as well so that's an extra plug it's amazing not because it has a list of every possible career you can go into and you can go in and click on it and you do that on your own time if I can you take a 40-hour class at the end it's like yeah I actually understand I understand this this part of the industry and it's pretty cool it's okay I'm sorry just had to plug my cloud and just admit yourself if you want to ask his you can tell he's he's he's he's what service is it's amazing what they do it's just amazing I have a question for you Brandi sure what you said about don't feel like you have to know how to do everything and I like pick something that you can do learn how to do it and get your star and then from there if you were going to advise someone to get started learning that thing would there be an area that you would you no point them to I would Point them to whatever they say they feel is interesting so if you're interested in building websites there a lot of resources to teach you how to build websites if you're interested in learning about how machine to be smarter and make decisions without the it the need for human interaction Tuesday Hey I what do I do next computers can you can teach a computer to a somewhat thing. I know that's kind of weird to say but somewhat I'm going to have that word so find something that doesn't interest you because I would say that it's better for you to really feel passionate about the technology that you're learning because at that point it's really your passion driving your career more than you following something bad that just seems to be very popular design answer your question jail has anyone else no worries I understand I understand I'll ask the class are some careers that everyone in this class is considering now that could be being a nurse that could be becoming an engineer support mechanical engineer a chemical engineer I'm just curious what you want to throw in the chats what are some careers that you all are considering I'm really interested in animation animation awesome that does require quite of a quite a bit of code does now so different types of Animation but BYU had a very great animation program that I consider going into it it's pretty pretty cool to do or see a lot of students a lot of students at BYU actually contribute to a lot of the famous Pixar movies you've seen or Disney movies all right anyone else Braden housing saying I met a guy in the end of movie yes that's true I'll I'll be the first to admit to everyone here that I'm not that the best coder in the world and it's in fact I only spent probably a couple hours a week coding but yes you can definitely get far just by being from you're with it and the program is school that we have we achieved I teach Python and python is a universal language and it's something that if you know python with Amazon and I know this bacheli that could be just knowing python so that we have a school that we teach coding in Python double say that for those that are considering other careers fine in fact I encourage you to explore whatever your passion about just also consider that maybe coating will it will allow you to be able to make an impact in the career that you're going to so for example I have a lot of family in the medical field and so forth a while I was an IT consultant I would actually request to be put on projects with hospitals to be able to use my patch for technology to help help the healthcare industry so you saw that we were able to help doctors have a more personal relationship with with their patients right so whatever industry that you go into or you choose to go into at least know when coding will will be able to open your eyes to possibilities rights maybe you become a pilot and realize you know what this plane probably need to to be able to figure out where the closest Stop emergency landing is right and you could be the one to say you know what maybe I could be the one to to start coding that sort or helping up and get that project started right so just having that technical experience actually is up your eyes to the possibilities regardless of what whatever career you go into Dyson the other questions for bring any questions at all is still in okay that's okay I have a couple hours like you're really going good right here where do you think he going so in my personal opinion Amazon is definitely the best tech company to be working for so at this point I see myself sticking around for a while I do have interest in I took business classes and I really do have an interest in starting my own business somehow somewhere and so I think I'd be with Amazon for a while and maybe start something on the side and and transition that maybe and so the nice thing is is that it's pretty old and and I can basically move wherever I feel like I can move wherever I'd like if I wanted to but for the time being I I I see myself with is the Amazon for a while how long have you work for Amazon that's the fun that's a fun fact. She only worked with Azan since February so almost a year coming up on here can I ask a question on that writing is it is it hard to retain good employees at a company like Amazon because you guys are are going to get a lot of people want to say hey let's go on business making $90 excetera employees that's a that's a good question I actually don't know too much about you know how many how many people are leaving or coming in I can speak to my experience which is I choose to stay because I still have so many different opportunities within the company there's quite a bit of freedom and flexibility for you to be able to do whatever you'd like with an Amazon so a lot of times I'm on the phone to customers but what's the other 40% of the time it's really up to me. decide what I do with that time no one from Amazon going to call me and be like hey what are you doing today like I just want to make sure you're being productive so there's a lot of truck there and so would that I actually doing building smart things I've built the smart watch I've built find a build a smart blender rights I get to do whatever I want and so I believe that's having the trust and the flexibility and the and the freedom to do whatever you want with in Amazon really keeps a lot of people grounded or stay here because I don't really think that kind of flexibility and trust is offered to many other places well what's up there's a specific answer I have to say here is that yes and whatever you end up Googling I would probably say ballpark it's more or less correct in my experience at IHOP yeah that's fine that's fine my son my son is at Amazon AWS up in Portland Oregon almost five years and yeah I think over 5 years he's still still a blue badge so we have any more questions from anybody is there any questions anything at all this is the other there quiet today you said though that they are open to you like if you decided that you wanted to go a different direction for you to be able to move around within the company in a New Direction and it's like gives you like that the opportunities that you would want to stay in the company but have a new career that's right that's absolutely correct there are ways that you can express those interest and be able to be trained in your current role so that you can be able to make that kind of transition and so for example I myself am more of a general Solutions architect helping General clients or customers and I have a specific interest in pacifier I actually asked hey can I start working with specifically iot Partners or customers so I can start getting that experience with the with the intent of being able to move to a specific team that deals with internet of things or smart objects so yes there is a lot of flexibility in that date they want you to stick around and they're willing to allow you to explore those options within the company because they didn't know that they trust you and they want you to be able to stay what is the acronym for iot sorry I know I dropped terminology of smart object so I can be a smartwatch that could be Alexa how to be a blender that turns itself while I'm at 3 a.m. to make your smoothie while yesterday ends up an appropriate time to have a smoothie so maybe let's say 7 a.m. so internet of things that's that's essentially the the term Force objects can I ask a question in the first 10 minutes with with what what changes has Amazon made with covid-19 so can I can I can really only I mean with but somebody different businesses I can really only speak to to news mostly at least so a lot of changes have been postponed it is obviously a lot lot less travel a lot everyone's working from a hall I believe that one is where that's at 8 WS at least I would think Amazon is going to be working from home until July 31st of 2021 now luckily a lot of AWS as which is the cloud server cloud company that Amazon is has is a a lot of them already work from home anyway and it because of covid-19 like a lot of us are going to continue to work from home even after coma disease is eradicated so we're at least handled her under control so I say that the biggest change has been the fact that we've been forced to work from home and realize 10 we can still function and deliver results even when we're all seemingly isolated into her own homes does that answer your question apartments in Spanish and she was more money elsewhere she likes okay guys anyone else if we're I think Brayden this has been wonderful thank you sign language we use that do we have a couple kids when you sign language like when they when they don't know how to talk yet so we we actually use sign language to be able to communicate cuz I can pick that up faster than speed so that's pretty cool it's hard to notice a good job or whatever so a lot another organization every time we get out of time out of your day to be here and to be with us and it doesn't stop here if you do have questions for Brayden you can send them to me and I can send them to him and he will get back to you and it's just been wonderful having all of the Amazon employees come and talk to her if I said we had for years and it's been just fabulous and I really genuinely appreciate you taking your time out of your day to be here with us Brayden it was just informative and just wonderful and I want to say thank you absolutely thank you all and hopefully you I had a great sat weekend and holidays okay stop

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Amazon Class Chat - Braeden Quirante

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