Amazon Pharmacy’s Pre-Purchase Experience Team

Amazon Pharmacy enables customers to shop for prescription medications online. The Pre-Purchase Experience team owns the customer experience and rendering platforms for features relating to purchases across desktop and mobile, such as the cart and checkout experiences.?

Q&A with Vidhi Patel, Software Development Manager

“I was born in Mumbai, India and relocated to the United States to obtain my Master’s in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University. I began my Amazon career as an intern with Amazon Recruiting Technologies building hiring tools. Post my internship and graduation, I worked with Amazon Lending team for ~4 years on designing and developing systems for rules execution, credit assessment, model execution and data certification. I joined Amazon Pharmacy in 2018 as a software development engineer when there were just 3 tech teams. I transitioned into a software development manager in early 2021, supporting pre-purchase experience team. As a manager, I am responsible for the technical roadmap and delivering features that enable customers to place orders for prescription medications. I support an environment where everyone has the opportunity to learn and grow in their career.”

What is your favorite Amazon memory? “One of my favorite Amazon memories is when our team (SDEs, SDMs) flew to Arizona for a Pharmacy fulfillment center visit to understand the pharmacy fulfillment process in-person. Outside of the office, it was a great team bonding experience. We went for a walk across downtown Tempe, hiked the “A” mountain, and tried out new dishes at a Mexican restaurant. During my tenure at Amazon, I also had the privilege to attend a lot of fun team events like Whirly Ball, Curling, Bowling, and a scavenger hunt.”

What an accomplishment at Amazon are you most proud of? “I am most proud of my contributions to enable the Amazon Pharmacy launch in 2020. We created new services for enabling order placement, order orchestration and fulfillment, and integrated with some of the most critical parts of Amazon while ensuring the highest levels of security and privacy for our customers.”

Best place you have ever traveled? “I love traveling and have a goal to visit one new country every year. New Zealand is one of my favorite countries; offering breathtaking scenery, friendly and fun-loving people, mountain escapes, adrenaline adventures, mouthwatering food and wine. Some of the highlights were the Hobbiton Movie Set Tour, Skywalk around the outside ring of the tallest building in NZ, Zorbing through the zig-zag Sidewinder Track, parasailing, bungee jumping, learning about Maori culture, soaking in the geothermal waters, digging a hot pool in the natural springs, and kayaking through Cathedral Cove. One of the coolest things my husband and I did while in New Zealand was the Waitomo glow worm cave; abseiling in the massive void and then embarking on an underworld trek before climbing back through the majestic dry passages of the Mangapu cave system.”

Q&A with Robert Vo, Senior Software Engineer

“Hey y’all, I’m Robert. I was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and I got my Bachelors of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Houston. After working at a few financial institutions and non-profits organizations, I joined Amazon Pharmacy in 2020 as a Software Development Engineer II. During my time here, I have been with the Purchase Experience organization working on a myriad of customer facing applications, including the Pharmacy Your Orders, Cart and Checkout experiences. It’s a great feeling knowing that I’m creating experiences to help customers get their medications easier.”

What brings you passion/excitement to your role and team? “Being able to drive problem statements from inception through implementation is very exciting to see. It’s a great feeling knowing that I’m making an impact on people’s lives by enabling them to get their prescriptions from the comfort of their home. I’m passionate about providing the best experience for everyone. I’m also excited about sharing knowledge amongst my team members, as it’ll lift up the entire team and, as a team, we can steer towards delivering the best pharmacy experience to the customers.”

What do you do for fun/ work-life balance? “Outside of work, I am an avid runner, I dabble in photography and I enjoy traveling. I have hopes of completing a marathon one day, but, for now, running gets me into a zen mood and I enjoy every moment of it. For photography, I’m more focused on landscapes and astrophotography. While in the dark skies, staring out into the stars while the camera is taking pictures of the milky way is always a great feeling. As for traveling, I’ve backpacked through more than 25 countries and I can’t wait to visit my next one.”

Best place you have ever traveled? “While I backpacked in East Asia, I spent a month in Japan visiting every city between Hiroshima and Sapporo. In that month, I saw the many natural beauties of that country, from sandy beaches and through snowy mountains. I ate Japanese food from the local shops, convenience stores such as FamilyMart and 7-Elevens, and the plethora of vending machines around the country. I also stopped by every interesting shop and flashy arcades during my time there. I highly recommend going!”

Q&A with Vamsi Priya Elisetti, Software Development Engineer

“Hello, this is Priya! I joined Amazon as an SDE in 2017 after graduating in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina Charlotte. I started my journey in Amazon Lending, where I worked for four years. Then, during the pandemic, I realized the impact pharmacies could bring to society. With that in mind, I wanted to explore the pharmacy space and joined Amazon pharmacy in 2021. I worked on introducing faster ship options to pharmacies along with scaling it to multiple states. Currently, I am focusing on new features being brought into the pharmacy to enhance customer experience.

I have always dreamt of joining Amazon and learning about its massive operational scale. To this day, I’m still excited about the prospect of solving new problems, “Every day is DAY 1”. Getting into Amazon”?

What brings you passion/excitement to your role and team? “As a computer science student, I always wondered how I could apply technology in real life. As an SDE at Amazon, I have hands-on experience handling customer-impacting problems. I like how Amazon encourages an SDE to propose solutions to address customer pain points, which gives more ownership of what we work on.

I feel we get that deep sense of satisfaction when we innovate things for customers, which is what I enjoy the most about working within the?Pharmacy org. As Amazon pharmacy is in the initial stages of growth, it gives a perfect opportunity to identify and improve the customer experience while obeying the security of sensitive data.”

What do you do for fun/ work-life balance? “Besides work, I like traveling, exploring new places, and trying new cuisines. My goal is to explore at least one new adventure every year and have already checked Sky Diving and Snorkeling of the list.

I play badminton weekly with a goal of excellence in every game.?I also love exploring artwork like canvas painting, greeting making, etc. and often participate in Expressions Lab (The Expressions Program is a collaborative effort to promote and showcase creativity, community and diversity of thought at Amazon). I recently started exploring my passion for Interior design as well.”

What is your favorite leadership principle and why??“My favorite leadership principle is “Dive Deep” as it impacts my day to day life as an Amazonian. I also apply this principle to improve the quality of my life outside of work. I always believe in addressing the root cause a problem arises. Lastly, I appreciate the inter-connectedness of principles “Dive Deep”, “Learn and be Curious” and “Ownership” as the trifactor for success.”

Q&A with Dalena Pham, Software Development Engineer

“Hi there, I'm Dalena! Prior to becoming a programmer, my college aspirations were to actually become a pharmacist. I even went so far as to be an officer for the Pre-Pharmacy Club at the University of Washington and was a pharmacy assistant at the local drugstore chain. One thing led to another and I ended up switching tracks to computer science. After being a full stack developer at a Seattle startup for some number of years, I came to Amazon amidst the pandemic to join the Alexa organization. However, my passion for pharmacy never left me and I was ecstatic when the opportunity to join Amazon Pharmacy came along. I feel like a younger me would be happy to know that I am still accomplishing our goal of serving the community through pharmacy albeit in an unconventional route than originally intended. Currently, I am an SDE on the Cart and Checkout team for Amazon Pharmacy, ensuring a smooth orchestration of all the services that power a customer to order their prescriptions.”

What brings you passion/excitement to your role and team? “On this particular team what really motivates me is delivering Amazon's customer obsession to an industry where I often saw confusion due lack of healthcare literacy and transparency. This was fueled further when I recently came into a situation myself where Amazon Pharmacy turned out to be a blessing for my family. My brother had a lapse in his insurance so we would've needed to pay cash for a drug he needs to take every day, however the retail price at his pharmacy was in the thousands for a one-month supply. As we were preparing to budget for the month to afford his medication, I decided to check Amazon Pharmacy and was relieved to see both the retail and PrimeRx price was at a much more affordable and manageable price point. Experiencing the benefits of Amazon Pharmacy on a first-hand basis has really given the work I do a lot of meaning, so I get excited every time we work on a new feature or initiative that can further serve our customers.”

What do you do for fun/?work-life balance? “I'm born and raised in Seattle so it comes natural for me to follow all the Seattle sports teams. As it's currently baseball season, I've been looking forward to catching some Mariners games in person. I love the buzz and the?feeling of a late night ball game in the summer! When we're not at the local games my friends and I also really enjoy doing escape rooms. Sometimes when we go out of town or travel together we like to make some time to experience an escape room in that city. My favorite themes are the ones with some mystery and (just a sprinkle of) horror.”

What is your favorite?leadership principle and why? “My favorite leadership principle is "Learn and Be Curious". It gives a sense of continuous improvement and being open to new ways of doing things, which is important to me. I get especially encouraged when I see my leaders embracing this principle as well. Sometimes what we learn and explore isn't the right path forward or sometimes it is, either way, there's always lessons to be learned and new perspectives to be gained. I feel like when you’re at big companies, there’s an underlying concern that people might be really set in their ways. However, I appreciate this leadership principle to keep our minds open and humbling ourselves to always learning.”

Want to join our? Pre-Purchase Experience team? Check out our current openings?here

For information about different job openings within Amazon Pharmacy, please browse our jobs page?here?or reach out to Rajni at [email protected]

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are reflective of employee personal experiences