David Sirbiladze at the Spheres at Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington.

David on this first day of school in Georgia in the mid-1980s.

In 1993, a Ukrainian boy named David (Dave) Sirbiladze moved with his family from the country of Georgia to the east coast of the United States. After relocating to the South Bay area in the mid-90s, Dave, now a troubled teenager looking for purpose, found himself living in an apartment complex with a large Georgian ex-pat community, many of whom were software engineers waiting for their work visas to be approved. With no option to leave the complex or form of entertainment, Dave became curious about their line of work. That summer, Dave grew closer to one engineer in particular who taught him how to program. Ultimately, this helped turn his life around and gave him something to focus on.

From there, Dave attended De Anza College and then transferred to UC Santa Cruz where he received a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science in 2004. After bouncing between different types of jobs, a recruiter for Amazon Alexa in Santa Cruz discovered Dave due to his experience in Android development. It was this encounter that gave him the opportunity to participate in an interview blitz. Today, Dave serves as an Engineer Manager for Amazon.

Serving as a manager can be challenging, and Dave initially did not plan to be in a management position because he wanted to focus purely on engineering. Communication between engineers and non-engineers can feel like speaking two different languages, however, after some time and 6 years of experience at Amazon, Dave discovered that one of his strengths was his ability to translate between people. In order to further test his management skills, Dave was given the opportunity to manage and work with an intern, which he enjoyed. Eventually, he began managing his own team which he has done so for the past year.

Despite a nearly 20-year career in engineering, like many, Dave is not immune to imposter syndrome. However, when asked about what he does to combat his doubts, Dave stated, “What I do in my head is I start thinking in my head about where I was and what I knew 20 years ago or 10 years ago versus what I know now and the things I that I take for granted now [that] are an everyday part of my life…It took many years of grinding for me to know these things well enough to take them for granted…”

When asked about what he wished he knew before getting hired at Amazon, Dave gave valuable advice that applies to most lines of work:

“Don’t try to do too much without knowing why things are the way they are. Sometimes there are hidden reasons why things are the way they are. A lot of smart people did good work to get us to this point. Trying to make changes too quickly without understanding, can alienate the people you work with. You’re never going to get the opportunity to just purely learn like you are going to get in the first few months so try to soak up as much as you can in the first few months before you start getting deliverables.”

From Georgia to Amazon: David Sirbiladze's Journey