If you ask Amie Greenwald, Software Development Engineer III at Audible, what her favorite listen is, she'll be quick to say A Life Without Limits.
The story of Chrissie Wellington's 2007 victory at the Ironman World Championships inspires Amie because she loves to chase goals and adventures of her own: she spends much of her free time in the great outdoors with her family and training for long-distance races.
"Most of the time I can get someone in my family to adventure with me, however, I mostly run alone," Amie explains. "Work from home has definitely allowed me to run more than previous years. I've run 750 miles so far this year." She is all set to run her tenth half-marathon in October 2021.
This go-getter mentality has set Amie up for success in her career at Audible, but she's also learned that not all adventures are best pursued alone. The last year and a half reminded her of her favorite piece of career advice: ask for help when you need it.
"The idea that you can't do it all alone is so true; having people to help makes all the difference," Amie explains.
Read on to hear about how Amie's career path ultimately led her to finding this sense of support and camaraderie with her team at Audible, the challenges they're tackling together, and how you can join them!
From Academia to Audible
Amie graduated with her PhD in computer science and immediately started her career as an Assistant Professor at Drexel University. But after a few years in academia, Amie decided to explore other career options. "I had been a student my whole life and then jumped into the academic professional world," says Amie. "Reflecting now, it would have made more sense to get exposed to a larger set of career options before choosing the only one I knew about."
Her first venture into the corporate world involved developing geo-location related as a senior software engineer. Six years and two children later, Amie decided it was time for a shift to a company that would allow her to work with a customer-facing application. Over the last nine years working at Audible, Amie has learned the ins and outs of the company, having worked on the Content Management Systems team, the Consumption team, and the company's very first Innovation team.
In the end, Amie came back to the CMS team as a Senior Software Engineer III, working within the Content and Royalties domain. "The last two years have been some of my best years at Audible," she says. "I love the impact our team has and the problems that we are solving."
Driving Impact at Audible
As a Senior Software Engineer III at Audible, Amie's main focus is developing scalable metadata processing systems for audiobooks that support the business and customers' needs. She finds ways to summarize and simplify data, ensuring a seamless and personalized product experience. "The best part of working at Audible is finding innovative solutions," Amie shares. "I love that I get to tackle a new challenge every day."
Finding solutions with the customer at the forefront of her mind and creating major impact is an integral part of Amie's job. Recently, she and her team worked on a project where they designed and developed new services that enabled podcasts to be processed and delivered at an unprecedented level. "We had a 100X increase in the number of products we processed each day," explains Amie. "Our team did a great job of working together and overcoming several obstacles along the way."
For Amie, driving impact isn't just about the value she and her team can provide to customers, but her community at large. She's deeply motivated by one of Audible's key People Principles: Activate Caring.
"[I work] on community projects like the Greater Newark Conservancy Foodbank to Girls Who Code," she elaborates. "And then within Audible mentoring and Interview Bar Raising. This has been an important part of my career at Audible and I look forward to continued opportunities to give back to both Newark and Audible."
Interview Advice
If you're interested in joining Amie in making an impact for Audible customers and the community at large, she has three key pieces of advice: "Prepare. Be yourself. Ask questions."
Preparing for a technical interview at Audible isn't very different from preparing for a technical interview anywhere else, says Amie, but she does recommend that you "listen to the advice of our great recruiters," when deciding how to prepare. That means that you, "Prepare before your interview, practice coding, and practice answering behavioral interview questions."
But the real secret, says Amie, is to "be yourself and be honest."
"If you are stuck on a problem, ask for help, ask questions, and learn from the people interviewing you."
Because as Amie knows all too well, you can't do it all by yourself.
Want to solve complex problems alongside Amie? Check out Audible's open roles here!
