Eric Widjaja, Technical Account Manager at Amazon Web Services | Pursuit Gong Ceremony
It is with great pleasure to announce that today I am one of Associate TAM at AWS Enterprise Support. I feel really blessed and honored to be part of Pursuit. During my time at Pursuit I not only learned how to code but also found a community that supported each other for a lifetime. I found a new family!
Here is a short reflection of my transformation journey until I land my first tech job…
I migrated here from Jakarta, Indonesia in 1998 with a bachelor's degree in Financial Management and had a dream to grow myself, by getting a Master's degree from one of the US Colleges so I can be a good provider when I start my own family.
It was very difficult for me to secure an entry-level job in my field, especially since I just graduated from another country, had no working experience and English was not my first language. So I started off by working odd jobs as a busboy, warehouse worker, and fast food worker just to make ends meet. While working these jobs I was still determined to get a better job, to pursue my dream. I kept mailing my resumes and cover letters to different companies. My efforts bore fruition when I was hired as a stock person at Barnes and Noble.
Eric working at Barnes & Noble
Even though my dream of being in Finance persisted, it was expensive to go to graduate school. I postponed the dream but invested myself by learning the company's operations manuals and reading management books. I offered ideas of how to improve the management team and learned to work collaboratively within my team. I built my way up to become an Assistant Store Manager where I felt comfortable. There were two things I loved about my position; assisting and fulfilling customers' needs and the operational challenges of running an $8 million store.
But at the end of 2015, the store I had worked at for the past 17 years closed, and I got transferred to a smaller one. This new position had fewer responsibilities and challenges.
However, working in the smaller store gave me more chances to know my customers better, and a couple of conversations with some of them actually opened my interest in the technology field, especially app development.
So I took a bias for action approach, I picked up some books on app making, and browsed the internet for tutorials. I tried to learn by myself during my spare time but I had no immediate success, until one day I received a message from Rosmary Fermin, who is also a Pursuit alumnus and my previous co-worker, about the Pursuit Fellowship.
During my time in class, I encountered many challenges, such as balancing my family time with studying time and completing projects. It took me twice as long to absorb and understand the new material. Covid also made it harder as our classroom shifted online. But I kept my eyes on the target, asked for help from my classmates and instructors, stayed late after classes, and changed my learning behavior to adapt to online.
I like to grow myself out of my comfort zone, find ways to learn about new technologies, incorporate them into my software development toolbelt, and combine them to make better solutions or applications. After CORE, while I was experiencing hard times on receiving rejections from my iOS job applications, I found an opportunity to learn about AWS Cloud through Pursuit.
I got accepted into the AWS-Silver Linings program, learned and got certified on AWS Cloud, and landed my first tech job with AWS.
Therefore, I really appreciate and am grateful to Jukay and Dave in creating Pursuit, Jeff for organizing The Silver Linings Program, giving me the opportunities to take part in the tech community.
To Rosmary who introduced me to Pursuit. To Leonardo Fiorini as my AWS mentors and 70 plus AWS volunteers.
To Istishna and Caroline Kang as my program managers, David and Ben for introducing Swift and DSA, Alex Paul for inspiring me to keep building iOS apps to help people. To Alexis and Daphne for letting me volunteer for the next cohorts.
To all my iOS 6.0 and Silver Lining fellows, especially Jocelyn Boyd, Angela, Tia, Hildy, Neema, Kary and Michelle, Anthony Gomez, Ian, Levi, Ayoola, Kimball, Jack, Albert, Jason, Eric M, Cameron, Brendon, Christian, Gregory Keeley, Luba, and Yuliia.
Srirupa, Jessica, Shanda, Deborah, Mohammed, Brett, Jerell, Volha, Gregg, and Niko Lewis. Thank you! I couldn’t have done it without you!
Finally, I would like to dedicate this Gong to my wife and daughter, who always stood by my side, no matter how hard any problems we encountered, and also to my parents. Thank you so much for your love and support!
For all my Pursuit families, I hope the gong’s sound will be a gentle reminder in our journey to keep learning and moving upward.
Eric at his gong ceremony in 2021
