With internship season in full swing, more than 15,000 Amazon interns—our largest class of interns ever—continue their meaningful contributions to our varied teams globally by supporting programs, products, and services that affect millions of customers daily. But many are already thinking about what comes next in their career.
Throughout the robust 12–16-week program, interns are encouraged to disrupt the status quo, and they are rewarded for thinking big and redefining what is “normal” as they team up with other curious and open-minded innovators, many of whom started as interns and now hold full-time roles at Amazon. Interns’ experiences help make every day better for our customers, our employees, and communities around the world.
We spoke with several former interns across Amazon who provided advice on succeeding at Amazon and beyond, ahead of Amazon Intern Day, which takes place on July 21.
How to have a successful internship and land a full-time job at the company, according to former Amazon interns
“Keep track of the projects that you work on and follow up with people. It can be overwhelming to know you have done amazing things, but it’s hard to remember the details at the end. When you are meeting people for coffee, follow up with them afterwards and build relationships with them,” said Tanya Nguyen, news monitoring coordinator.
“No one gets to write your story but you. Don’t allow anyone to diminish your dreams—be fearless and keep your goals ambitious, even if you’re not sure how you’ll accomplish them yet. Remember, you are the captain of your own ship—set sail with confidence and gusto. You’ve got this, and I believe in you,” said Haley Jones, program manager II.
“Throughout the internship, I consistently sought to meet with other Amazon employees beyond my assigned team, joined communities and affinity groups that would inspire me, and took on an additional project with my mentor that allowed me to acquire new knowledge outside of my day-to-day role. My internship at Amazon truly opened my eyes to a plethora of new experiences and connected me to unique people with diverse backgrounds who I was able to learn from.Continuing to learn and be curious is something that I strive to uphold in both my personal and professional life. This has led me to discover a lot about myself, my customers, and my community. I believe this has given me the confidence and knowledge to help get me to where I am today," said Amelia Leahy, AWS demand generation representative.
Apply to the Amazon internship program
“An internship at Amazon gives you opportunities to learn new technologies and skills, interact with incredibly talented technologists and professionals, and see what it is like to be a full-time Amazon employee. The biggest takeaway from my experience during my internship was that Amazon does it all. If I didn't like the team I landed on, there were opportunities to switch to a completely different kind of technology team. Even though I love my team and the work I ended up doing as a full-time employee, I find myself connecting with and working with teams doing completely different projects than my own. I like how much variety there is in the same job at Amazon. It provides room to experiment with what you want to do as a career," said Marianna Ghirardelli, AWS software development engineer.
Learn more and apply to the 2023 Amazon internship program. While internships and full-time positions do not have application deadlines, we encourage students to apply in late summer or early autumn to increase the likelihood of interviewing for an open role.
