Passion. Leadership. Curiosity.

Hi there! I'm Jared Azevedo - an aspiring software engineer with a multicultural and multidiscplinary background. Throughout my life, I have focused on and developed around three key values: passion, leadership, and curiosity.

About Me

Priorities and Passions

The biggest factor in a lot of the life decisions I have made is my family. Being able to provide and take care of them later in life is something I want to have the flexibility to do. It is also important to me that I am able to live up to the expectations they had for themselves (i.e. they have been excellent role models). As much as I want to give back to my family, I also want to give back to this planet. It is our jobs to protect and care for this magnificent orbital body we call Earth. Easter egg: I mention this because in a previous version of this site I called for my family and our planet my top priority - oops!

the mackinac bridge

The Island I Call Home

When people ask where I come from, I typically respond with "Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan". However, the truth is I grew up on a small island right across from Sault Ste. Marie, on the other side of the St Mary's river, called Sugar Island. Growing up in a close-knit community was an incredible privilege and I consider myself fortunate for that, but it did little to prepare me for what laid ahead.

Heading West

One of the defining characteristics of Stanford isn't the history or location (but ask me about it and I will tell you that it is some of the most fascinating stuff I learned there), but rather the diverse range of courses they require undergraduates to take. Instead of spending all my time in exactly one focus or subject, I had been granted the chance to persue many different interests to create a unique background that truly speaks to who I am and what I want to do in life. It has forced me to have a multidiscplinary background that has helped me view problems from different angles and come up with new solutions some might not see at first. An outside of the box perspective, if you will.

a headshot of me

The Earth Comes First

The major thing I hope to accomplish through my body of work is to create sustainable tech. This might take a variety of forms, such as helping with smart grids or creating an entirely new technology (perhaps a GPU optimized for AI that consumes less than a quarter of the energy a 4070 ti SUPER takes). It might also include creating software and hardware that we use in computers that are better optimized (it's all about optimization) or are made of materials that are more environmentally friendly and sourceable. Either way, my main goal for work is to make technology not just better our lives, but the lives of the generations ahead and the planet we will leave for them to inherit.

Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates, Jared Azevedo..?

I think it would be hard to achieve the above ambitions without leaving some sort of impact on society. Even with other work that I will enjoy along my journey, I want to do something that improves the lives of my peers and everyone around me. Please click on the graphic below to learn a bit more about my core values directly from me!

Life Highlights & Achievements

  • Getting into JKL Elementary
  • Winning at Business Professionals of America Nationals
  • Graduating as Salutatorian
  • Accepting Stanford University
  • Playing Club Ice Hockey
  • Starting career at Amazon

Goals

  • Create sustainable, impactful tech
  • Leave a lasting impression wherever I go (hopefully a good one)
  • Better the people around me
  • Found my own company

Values

  • Leadership
  • Passion
  • Curiosity
  • Organization
  • Teamwork
  • Empathy

Fun Facts

  • I enjoy speaking French despite but have a petit vocabulaire
  • I love hockey but make Michael Scott look like Wayne Gretzky
  • I saw Bill Gates in person before
  • My last name is always a challenging pronunciation for people
  • Growing up in the north has me loving the snow and cold

Inside Scoop: My Life Unpacked

As you explore the rest of my website, you'll discover more about my recent adventures, both in the workplace and through my extracurricular activities. Each section includes a bulleted list highlighting the main points, with additional information available on the right side under the respective header. The left side of each section provides further context and personal reflections, offering a deeper understanding of what each experience meant to me.

Amazon SDE

Opening the Door

Blossoming from my Amazon internship during my last summer of university, I was delighted to receive a return offer. With that experience under my belt, I felt prepared to take the plunge into the sector of software engineering (or as Amazon likes to call it, software development). I accepted the offer with the same vigor and enthusiasm that got me to this point in my life - I was ready for my next chapter.

tbd

Honing my Skills

Becoming a full time software developer has opened my eyes to how I can set myself apart from others in one of the hottest job fields in the world. It is important to have a variety of tools available, but it is arguably more important to know how to use those tools. The skills I started in high school and worked on during college were now being put to the test. It wasn't just me that was counting on being able to do my job well, it was a whole host of stake holders now. I debated throughout my time at college whether to pursue a Masters or begin my time in the work force, and nearing a year into the latter I am confident that I made the right decision. Getting exposure in the real world is something a class room would never be able to replicate and prepare me for. My abilities continue to improve every single day and I am able to interact with some very distinguished builders.

tbd

Looking Ahead

Shaped by the American school system, I am set to view my career in four year blocks. I am excited to be starting the first block at a company that is known around the world, renowned for their industry-shifting creativity and risk-taking. It has helped reaffirm that I have made the correct decisions and can look fondly on my past. The past is just that, however, and the future is as promising as the Detroit Lions and Detroit Red Wings!

Skills Learned & Improved

  • Team Communication
  • Coding Best Practices
  • Technical Writing
  • Knowledge Sharing and Preservation
  • Leadership Principles
  • Daily Motivation

Amazon Internship

Industry Introduction

My first experience in the tech industry came via a software development engineer internship with Amazon. When I first received the offer, I was intimidated by how challenging this opportunity might be, but by the time I started I was ready and eager to jump in. Twelve weeks later and I am able to say with certainty that this was the best possible scenario I could have wished for to dip my feet into the water of tech, and big tech at that!

tbd

Coding Workflow

I had been coding in the classroom and on the side for years, but neither properly prepared me for what it was like to code in a work environment. The first thing I had to adapt to was working on a shared codebase and being encouraged to collaborate with my teammates or look up questions I had. The next challenge I had to overcome was how to address and respond to feedback on my code reviews. Lastly, I needed to learn internal tools for building and deploying packages while figuring out how to use git. My usage of git before this internship was just to clone repos, but there were many more commands and options required this time!

tbd

Hybrid in Seattle

The duration of my internship was 12 weeks, but I spent only a handful of days in the office my team was housed in. At the start of my internship, I had the goal of going into the office the vast majority of the time (~4 times a week), but mostly empty offices and the advantages of working from home ended up flipping that plan on its head. While I didn't go into the office as much as I initially wanted to, I enjoyed every second of my work whether I was working from my apartment or within one of the Amazon offices. When I wasn't working, I took some time to explore Seattle. I didn't stray far from the city since I didn't have my own car, but I was able to enjoy a couple of the major attractions such as the Space Needle and the diverse variety of local eateries that Seattle offers.

Skills Gained & Improved

  • Teamwork
  • Communication (digital and face-to-face)
  • Identifying Business Needs
  • Addressing Business Needs
  • Document Curation
  • Code Sharing
  • Code Researching

Concepts Learned

  • Office Etiquitte
  • Java
  • DynamoDB
  • API Practices

Sault Tribe Internship

An Opportunity

I spent ten weeks working for my tribe, the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians, in the Executive Office. I interned with four other students who were given positions in different offices within the Tribe. Despite initially wanting to work with their tech department, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Executive Office. I came into the program unsure of what to expect, but by the end I was able to develop a variety of skills.

the administration building for the tribe

Leadership comes Calling

Amongst my peers, I was neither the eldest nor the youngest. Despite this, after our first workshop it became apparent I would be leading us during these collaborative days. With others hesitant to take charge, I wanted to ensure we finished the work assigned to us and gave our best to our collective supervisor. I didn't just strive for the best result, however, as it was equally important to me to make sure everyone felt that they contributed and were being heard during these weekly workshop meetings together.

the big bear arena where I worked

Pursuing my Interests

When I wasn't working with my fellow interns, I was efficiently completing the work assigned to my role within the Executive Office. I worked directly under the Assistant Executive Director and was frequently involved with projects that would span across the entire Tribe. I was able to get through a lot of this work rather quickly, so I was allowed to work on my own project. Even before employment with the Tribe, I knew their website was antiquated and needed a much needed update. I brought this idea up to my supervisor and she was in full agreement. I quickly began working on a mock website that was meant to just include a new landing page and a template for what the other pages could look like along with an alternate design for the entire website, but it quickly grew into me recreating nearly half of the existing website. None of this work felt truly like work, as I thoroughly enjoyed being able to work on so many different facets of the Tribe and on a coding project that was right up my ally!

Skills Gained & Improved

  • Leadership
  • Teamwork
  • Identifying Business Needs
  • Addressing Business Needs
  • Communication (digital and face-to-face)
  • Project Planning
  • Video Production and Editing

Concepts Learned

  • Office Etiquitte
  • Project Management
  • Data Collection
  • Data Analysis

Miscellaneous

Stanford University - CS124: From Languages to Information

Delving Into AI

Although I've read a few articles on artificial intelligence and browsed a Google AI page, I never took a formal course on the subject. Yet the untapped potential of AI intrigued me deeply, and I realized early in my undergraduate studies that I wanted to specialize in this branch of computer science. Although this course wasn't the typical starting point for AI-focused computer science majors, I saw it as a perfect opportunity to get my feet wet and my toes in the water.

neural network abstraction to demonstrate ai

Capstone Project

One of the best parts of this class was the final project. A simple chatbot to recommend what movies to watch. It was the perfect culmination of using the AI conceptswe had covered in class and working with others on a team coding project. For me, it served a good example of the type of work environments I might see myself in in the future. One of my teammates had professional experience in the industry, so it was also an excellent opportunity to try and pry some useful information to prepare myself and know which skills I should be focused on showcasing! Little did I know that chatbots (LLMs like ChatGPT) would soon change the way the public sees AI.

a stock photo of someone typing (emulate movie bot)

Skills Gained & Improved

  • Python
  • Visual Studio Code
  • Teamwork
  • Perseverance

Concepts Learned

  • Collaborative Coding
  • Neural Networks
  • Natural Language Processing
  • Classifiers
  • Chatbots

Miscellaneous

  • This was my second time working in a group to code
  • Despite concentrating on AI, this was my first AI class
  • We played a little bit with Markov Chains

Stanford University - PWR 2: Ethics and AI

Choosing my Topic

The writing and rhetoric (PWR) program gave me the chance to research and write about a topic of my interest. While the course itself wasn't a part of the computer science program, I knew I wanted to create a project that tied in with my interest in sustainable energy and how AI plays into that picture. With that in mind, I ended up choosing smart grids as my final topic. It ended up being a very rewarding experience as I got to dive deep into the research and studies that have been published on smart grids and how they can revolutionize the power grid. I was also able to build a logic of formal reasoning that helped me justify why smart grids are needed and what needs to be done next.

Presenting Smart Grids

Searching through the pages and pages of information led me realize how much I enjoyed doing this sort of thing. I attribute it to the fact I was already fascinated by the technology and how it is being developed, but I genuinely enjoyed learning more about smart grids and figuring out the intersections with other topics and ideas I previously learned. Becoming so invested in this topic filled me with confidence, and by the time the final presentation rolled around I was able to deliver my argument with clearness and mental fortitude.

the title slide of my presentation

Skills Gained & Improved

  • Public Speaking
  • Conciseness
  • Clarity
  • Research
  • PowerPoint
  • Video Production

Concepts Learned

  • Smart Grids
  • Public Policy
  • White Paper Crafting

Miscellaneous

  • White Paper Document Link
  • This is the third class where I was able to explore my interest in sustainability and tech
  • My instructor was ruthless but helped me grow a lot
  • I had to do a Q&A after my presentation which went quite well

Udemy - Web Developer Bootcamp

Wanting More than HTML & CSS

My interest for designing and coding websites started in a high school media course that wasn't even about website coding. After finishing all of the assigned work quicker than my classmates, the teacher gave me a login to an old online course that covered the rudimentary parts of both HTML and CSS. Ever since, I have loved creating websites and soon after this class I wanted to learn more. This led me to searching for courses online and finally deciding on a Udemy course that was on sale.

the course page on udemy

Getting Advanced

After covering HTML and CSS again, I got a much better introduction to modern JavaScript before moving onto some libraries that were quite useful for working with web traffic. However, my favorite concept that I learned to play with was databases. I was introduced to both SQL and NoSQL database types, but worked with MongoDB (a NoSQL database) throughout the course. I was finally ready to build application with persistant data and information such as user accounts and shopping carts.

screenshot of my code development environment

My Latest Website

Having an ePortfolio was something I always wanted to do, but having the confidence to create one was something that I lacked. I finally decided to tackle this website to show off not just who I am, but also creating a living document using my web design and coding abilities. It has been the best place to state my core values and curate my lived-experiences around these values, too!

Skills Gained & Improved

  • HTML and CSS
  • Modern JavaScript
  • Bootstrap
  • node.js
  • express.js
  • MongoDB

Concepts Learned

  • Front-end Web Design
  • Back-end Web Development
  • SQL and NoSQL Databases
  • Web Rollout

Miscellaneous

  • I took this course twice due to a complete overhaul in 2021
  • This course has helped me create several websites, including this one
  • And this one about smart grids
  • Also this one on for my senior class at Stanford