From Uruguay to London, from London to Luxembourg, and from there to Tokyo. That was the journey taken by Natán Menoni, a graduate of the Systems Engineering at Universidad ORT Uruguay in Universidad ORT Uruguay, since joining the Amazon team in 2018. Currently based in Japan, he works as a Software Development Engineer II.
In this role, Menoni faces a variety of challenges, ranging from implementing engineering projects to mentoring or supporting new employees. Looking ahead to the coming years, one of his main goals is to explore the world of teaching, which he finds fascinating and enriching.
In this interview, he talks about his professional experience in our country before moving abroad, what it’s like to work overseas, and what life is like in a country like Japan.
"The focus on entrepreneurship offered by the program—and by ORT in general—is important for understanding how businesses operate and how a potential company can be structured."
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How did the opportunity to join the Amazon team in London in 2018 come about?
It was a fairly standard process. I submitted my resume through the Amazon Jobs website and moved on to the interview stage. After three months of assessments and interviews, I received a formal job offer.
When I last changed jobs in Uruguay, I had to decide between becoming more involved with the business side and acting as a liaison between the development team and the business team, or continuing to focus on the technical side as a developer. I chose the second option because I knew that, sooner or later, I would apply to one of the industry’s leading companies.
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What was it like to move from Uruguay to further your career?
It was challenging and exciting, both personally and professionally. I arrived in a country I had never set foot in before, with a suitcase in each hand, ready to start from scratch, with a world of possibilities ahead of me.
Professionally speaking, I found myself in a new environment. Amazon is a company with a very well-defined culture that provides aframework forwork and serves as a common language among all employees around the world. I’m currently in Tokyo, having previously worked in Luxembourg and London, and it’s abundantly clear that this common language exists.
Culturally speaking, experiencing different places and societies helps broaden one’s horizons. London and Luxembourg have very similar cultures and are both part of the Western world, but now that I’m in Japan, I can see many differences, and it’s very valuable to learn and try to identify what works and what doesn’t in each situation across different cultures.
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You currently work as a Software Development Engineer II. What are the main responsibilities and challenges of that role?
My main responsibility is to lead and implement projects from start to finish. Essentially, when faced with ideas or problems to solve, our team and I must determine what the ideal solution is from the customer’s perspective in order to deliver a positivecustomer experience.
Once the problem or idea has been clarified, we move on to the system design and architecture phase, during which we conduct a review with the team and a committee of engineers. Next, we proceed with implementation,testing, andthe product launch. From that point on, the product is continuously monitored to ensure its improvement.
In addition, I participate in reviews of other projects—both within my team and across other teams, as well as anything related to software development within my team—whether by reviewing or writing code.
In addition, career progression at Amazon depends on each individual and the path they choose to take. I decided to get involved in teaching and mentoring; I started offering some internal courses for other engineers at Amazon and mentoring more junior engineers.
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During your professional career in Uruguay, you worked at various companies involved in software development. What did you gain from those experiences?
These experiences, beyond simply being my first exposure to the world of software development—with all that that entails—provided me with the building blocks for my professional career.
One of the most valuable experiences I had was the opportunity to work with a mentor, who really helped me improve a great deal as a programmer. He was the technical lead on the project I was working on and had a huge influence on me as a programmer and software developer. In fact, I often find myself drawing on ideas from that time to apply at Amazon.
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How do you remember deciding to pursue a degree in Systems Engineering at ORT?
When I finished high school, like many teenagers, I didn't know what I wanted to do. Although I liked math, I also had an affinity for the social sciences. With that in mind, I decided to major in economics at another university.
After a few months, I realized it wasn't for me. So, the following year, I started a degree in Electronics Engineering at ORT, and I quickly felt much closer to what I wanted to do.
In my first year, I took two programming courses (Programming I and Programming II) and a workshop in which I had to program a robot. That was my first exposure to programming, and that’s when I realized it was something I enjoyed and felt I could excel at. So, in my second year at ORT, I officially began the degree program in Systems Engineering.
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Which of the skills you acquired during your Systems Engineering degree at ORT do you use in your work?
First and foremost, the theoretical and practical foundations of programming. College gave me a very solid foundation in that regard, especially when it comes to object-oriented programming. There are concepts that I apply every day in my work, both when I’m coding and when I’m reviewing my colleagues’ work.
It also gave me a lot of insight into how a computer works at the low-level. When you’re working on Amazon’s scale, performance is critical, and understanding all these topics becomes very important. Having a solid foundation helps expand your knowledge in each of these areas and makes the work easier.
I also remember that while I was practicing algorithms for the Amazon interviews, I didn't need to learn anything from scratch because I already had the knowledge from college; I just had to brush up on it.
Finally, I believe that the overall focus on entrepreneurship offered by the program—and by the university in general—is important for understanding how businesses operate and how a potential company can be structured.
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A few months ago, the Financial Times highlighted Uruguay’s leadership in software exports. As a professional in the field, what is your view on the sector’s development in Uruguay?
First of all, it’s important to note that I left Uruguay quite some time ago, so my perspective may not be up to date and may even be somewhat biased by the people I currently keep in touch with who live in Uruguay.
However, I can say that during the last few years I lived in Uruguay, there was already a noticeable surge in the number of companies specializing inoutsourcing andserving the U.S. market. This is positive because it’s a good business and has two major impacts: it maintains high demand for professionals in the field, which encourages many people to choose this career path, and, on the other hand, it opens doors for many engineers and programmers to take their first steps into the workforce, thereby increasing the number of skilled professionals in the market.
The presence of this critical mass of industry professionals makes it possible to pursue new ideas and develop proprietary products that go beyond outsourcing. I believe Uruguay has some excellent examples of companies that decided to forge their own path and have been very successful.
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What are your career plans for the coming years?
In the short term, I would like to continue working on complex problems that require communication with stakeholders from different areas, on an increasingly larger scale.
In the medium term, I would like to continue deepening my understanding ofavailability andhow it affects software architecture. I am fortunate to be part of a company that has pioneered the industry-wide standards in this field. This gives me access to insights and lessons learned on the subject, as well as opportunities to put them into practice.
On the other hand, I’d love to continue exploring the world of teaching: mentoring and sharing knowledge is incredibly rewarding, and I learn so much from these experiences.