Amazon Pharmacy's Rx Lifecycle Team

The Rx Lifecycle team provides high clinical quality and fast medication dispenses to our customers. The group consists of multiple engineering teams whose applications and systems, power the pharmacy to obtain prescriptions and evaluate and verify clinical safety and quality for customers. In addition, the team manages the source of truth for clinical reference data, which is the bedrock for the entire customer experience. The team also leverages ML to create a delightful customer experience.

Q&A with?Raymond Lei, Software Development Manager

“I was born in China and came to the US for my master degree. I started my software journey in late 2010. Having worked in companies with various sizes, I joined Amazon Pharmacy in the midst of the pandemic in 2021 as a Software Development Manager. Currently, I support two teams that handle prescription acquisition and processing. As a manager, I am responsible for the technical roadmap and execution to quickly, safely obtain and process prescriptions on behalf of our customers so that they can get their medications safely, easily and quickly.”

?What is exciting about the Amazon office? “Being able to see co-workers in person! I am quite old school in this area. Having the office as an option works quite well for me. Sometimes, I would like to see a friend in-person. Sometimes, I just want to change the scenery to give my brain some boosts. The Taiyaki ice cream right next to the office building is hard to beat also.”

What is your favorite leadership principle and why? “Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit. When trying to solve highly complex problems, there are normally no clear paths to a solution. Some teams are stuck in a forever discussion mode and make no progress because team members cannot agree on the best way forward. This LP provides a framework to avoid that trap. It encourages all members to offer their voice, especially when their voice differs from others. At the same time, this LP reminds us that discussions could go on forever and we may not learn anything if we don’t commit and act in the real world.

Sometimes, the best way forward is not to hold up on seeking the best solution, but to find a good solution that can be iterated on.”?

Best place you have ever traveled? “Hong Kong. When I hiked out from the mountains?and saw all the skyscrapers standing right in front of you, I wondered if those buildings were dropped into the jungle.”?

Q&A with Pooja Chitrakar, Senior Software Engineer

““I was born in India and moved to the USA?back in 2013 for my master’s degree. I joined Amazon as a co-op intern during my masters and joined back as full-time employee in 2016. I have moved in multiple organizations within Amazon and joined Amazon Pharmacy just before the pandemic (literally 2 days before work from home started) in 2019. I have grown in Amazon Pharmacy to become a Senior SDE within Prescription Processing space. The Prescription processing is a very interesting and complex space where we continuously get to learn and improve the lifecycle of prescription. As a senior SDE, my responsibilities are to identify areas of gaps and plan to better and safely handle customer data and process prescription information and to mentor other SDEs on the team to grow in their role. Since I joined Amazon Pharmacy, I understood how healthcare space works and became more aware of the insurance and medical treatment I get.”

What brings you passion/excitement to your role and team? “At Amazon, you can find such a diverse set of problems and have the opportunities to work on almost anything that you would like. Amazon also gives you a platform to have a strong sense of ownership, innovation, learn from the best in the industry. Knowing the complexities of health care space and finding ways to improve it for the end user by being Customer Obsessed in the most customer obsessed company and knowing that it will benefit me and my family’s health as well, gives me a great sense of excitement.”?

What do you do for fun/work-life balance? “I love hanging out with my friends. Every weekend we will meet, do some cooking together (barbecue if weather permits) and play board games. We all love to travel as well, so we plan a lot of trips - especially road trips. Planning and going on road trips is an amazing way to enjoy the journey as well.”

What is your favorite leadership principle and why “My favorite LP is Bias for Action. This LP empowers?me to learn from customers. Amazon, rather than focusing on MVP (minimum viable product) actually focuses on MLP (minimum lovable product), with the idea that trying out ideas and learning from them is important and to add learning platforms there with your MLP, so we can hear from the customer directly on what they want.?

Though it sounds simple, with a business as big as Amazon, it is a risky one, but this drives us to work with stakeholders in an agile manner and co-ordinate with diverse group on what that MLP will be.”

Best place you have ever traveled? “I love traveling, I can get never get enough vacations from any company, lol. The best place I have travelled so far is Alaska. The still remember the Denali national park, the mountains, the road, the glaciers and the grandness of it all. When I was first traveling there, I was like it might be similar to all other places as it has parks, mountains and long drive, which you find at many other places. But when we started our trip, I could not stop looking, everything is amplified 1000 times in Alaska. Also, the most excited part for me was having daylight at 11 pm at night, I was so amazed by that.”

Q&A with Kristopher Kosmatka, Software Engineer

“I grew up near Philadelphia originally, and over the years I’ve lived in Madison, Wisconsin, Portland Oregon, and Boston. My software engineering journey had a few unexpected turns. Initially, in college, I thought I would be a music major, but I quickly became fascinated by my Math, Physics, and CS courses. After completing a Math degree, I worked for a few years in medical research where I helped develop statistical models used to analyze FMRI imaging data. Through that experience I grew to love the craft of building the software that powered our studies. After a few years I decided to pursue a master’s degree in CS and build a career in software development. I then joined a video streaming startup called Elemental Technologies, which was later acquired by AWS and I helped to build the team that created the AWS Elemental MediaPackage service. Eventually I learned about an opportunity to join the PillPack team, and I jumped at the chance to get involved once again with applications in the medical field. I’m excited every day working with the Amazon Pharmacy to build software that has such a positive and important impact on people’s health and quality of life.”

?What do you do for fun/ work-life balance? “I spend a lot of my time outside work with my wife and our always-ready-for-a-walk golden retriever. We’re always looking for new hiking spots around the Boston area with a good dog friendly swimming hole to jump into. I’m also an avid cyclist. I’m trying to eventually ride all of the major rail trails in the region, and I bike commute into our office in the Boston Seaport, about a 20 mile round trip, at least once a week. Someday I’d love to do a cross-country bike tour from the east coast back to my old home in Portland, Oregon.”

What is your favorite leadership principle and why? “Learn and be Curious. At Amazon you are given a ton of freedom and agency to tackle the problems you think are the most impactful to our customers and to your team. But that is also a challenge that you must meet to constantly build the skills and insights that are needed in order to solve those problems. As a life-long learner, I really value that personal growth and development is so central to everything we do here. There is so much to learn and discover everyday as an Amazon engineer.”

Best place you have ever traveled? “When I was in college, I took a semester off and solo backpacked across Europe for about four months. I had absolutely no plans, no place to stay, no cell phone - just a backpack and some guidebooks. I got to spend time in eight countries and saw countless castles, cathedrals, piazzas, palaces, ruins, and artworks. As a broke student, some of my favorite memories were finding super cheap ways to see and do things. I never expected that I would get to see the Vienna Philharmonic for just a few bucks for a standing room spot at the back of the concert hall. But probably my favorite time was unexpectedly meeting a friend in Barcelona, and just hanging out sitting on the beach, eating paella, and sipping sangria. It’s an experience I wish everyone could have once.”

Q&A with Carolyn Kim, Software Engineer

“I was born in Seoul, Korea and grew up in Toronto, Canada. I moved to Boston to attend Wellesley College and lived here ever since I graduated from college. I joined PillPack in January of 2017, and the last five years have been an incredible journey. I worked with three different teams, launched a variety of features and services, and experienced the transition to PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy. Through it all, I learned about what it means to build creative, scalable, and reliable solutions to complex problems, and what it means to work together both as a small and as a huge team for the goal of improving the lives of our customers. I currently work as a SDE in Prescription Acquisition team; my team’s main responsibility is to quickly and reliably communicate with and receive prescriptions from prescribers on behalf of our customers. It is amazing to be involved in such an integral part of our business, as this is the first service that the customers encounter after signing up for Amazon Pharmacy.”

What is your favorite Amazon memory? “My favorite memory is the team outing we had in the fall of 2019. We went on a hike to a nearby reservation. It was a lovely day for a hike and one of my team members invited us to his house afterwards for a barbecue. It was a fun team-bonding time, and it’s especially memorable because it was our last team outing before the pandemic. Of course, none of us knew it at the time, but I think this kind of bonding time helped us work well together and support each other even during the pandemic. And in the summer of 2021, we were finally able to have another team outing by going to the same reservation. It was great seeing each other again after a long time of working from home.”

What brings you passion/excitement to your role and team? “My team and coworkers have been my absolute favorite part of working here. Even during the pandemic, we have implemented and launched significant improvements for our customers. But more importantly, we have supported each other and built trust with each other, despite all of us working from home and dealing with the challenges of the pandemic. Working with such talented and supportive people makes me look forward to even more incredible and innovative services that we will build together in the future.”

What is your favorite leadership principle and why? “Thing Big: Even though the services we provide seem simple, the complexities of working in a field as antiquated and as extensive as healthcare makes the work all the more challenging and exciting. At Amazon, we are not bound by how things have worked in the past, but are encouraged to think big about the innovative changes we could bring to this field. As such, we have opportunities not just to improve an existing system, but to create the best system for our customers from the ground up. I appreciate being able to grow in this area and being a part of innovating this field which will have a tremendous impact on our customers.”

Best place you have ever traveled? “A few years ago, I traveled to Europe for the first time and toured around Greece and Italy. It was a part of a big group trip that my church organized, and we visited many historical places and sites over two weeks. It was amazing and humbling to see such incredible structures that were built over a thousand years ago. They were not intact, but they were still standing and each one held such rich and profound history. It was an incredible opportunity to see life through a different perspective. And the food, especially gelato in Rome, was also amazing.”

Want to join our Rx Lifecycle 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