Putting her Software Engineering Skills to Work at DraftKings and Amazon
Qian Li, who is from China, joined the MS in Information Systems-Bridge program in Spring 2021 on Northeastern’s Seattle campus. Her undergraduate education was in management. While at Northeastern, she gained a comprehensive education and accessed a range of resources. She applied her education on the job on co-op at DraftKings as a software engineer. Upon graduation she will be starting a full-time position at Amazon as a software engineer.
DraftKings is an American daily fantasy sports contest and sports betting company. The company allows users to enter daily and weekly fantasy sports–related contests and win money based on individual player performances in five major American sports, Premier League and UEFA Champions League football, NASCAR auto racing, Canadian Football League, the XFL, mixed martial arts, Tennis, All Elite Wrestling, and more.
Li’s relevant coursework in algorithms, front-end web development, and back-end web development prepared her to make valuable contributions to the projects she worked on during her co-op. “Northeastern University provided me with valuable resources, including resume and interview preparation, which enhanced my candidacy and assisted me in presenting myself as a strong candidate to DraftKings,” she says. Moreover, she believes that being a part of the Northeastern community was one of the many reasons she was selected for the co-op opportunity.
While at DraftKings she worked in the Account Platform department, which provides user account management functionality to support all the company’s products. Her primary responsibilities included creating new APIs to improve system stability and convenience, adding new features, and writing tests to ensure system stability and prevent bugs. To perform these tasks effectively she had to become proficient in the C# programming language and .NET framework and develop a deep understanding of existing codebase of the technology stack used by the team. One of Li’s projects involved converting the Twilio SDK to the Twilio HTTP solution, which allows DraftKings to use their HTTP client to send requests to Twilio for sending SMS notifications to users. Overall, her job required strong technical skill set as well as the ability to collaborate with team members to deliver high-quality products.
During Li’s time at Northeastern University, she has studied a variety of courses that have enriched her education and prepared her for the future. These courses include web design and user experience engineering, web development tools and methods, smartphone-based web development, advanced big data applications and indexing, managerial communication for engineers, and program structure and algorithms. She adds, “each of these courses has provided me with valuable knowledge and skills that I can apply to my field of interest.”
“My goal is to contribute to the field by developing innovative software solutions that are both practical and sustainable,” she says. Li is aware of how critical it is to stay current with technological developments and to maintain a commitment to lifelong learning and improvement to lead the field and pave the way for a more promising future for the next generations.
Li will be graduating summer 2023 and has already accepted an offer from Amazon as a full-time software engineer. She is excited to work as an SDE and contribute to the company by developing innovative products and improving existing ones. She remains eager to continue learning and developing her skills to make a positive impact on the world through technology!
View Li’s video of her experience with the MSIS-Bridge program.