Nick Wilson
University of Washington EcoCAR 2 alumnus Nick Wilson recently sat down with current team members to talk about how EcoCAR has affected the trajectory of his career.
Question: Where are you today and what are you doing there?
I am now at Amazon as a Product Manager for Shop with Points, a program that enables customers to spend their credit card rewards points as cash. Among other things, I’m responsible for improving the way customers interact with the product, and increasing its availability.
Question: How did your EcoCAR experience help you prepare for your role at Amazon?
I served as business coordinator for the UW EcoCAR 2 team during the first year of the competition. EcoCAR gave me the opportunity to practice skills like fundraising, managing program budgets and recruiting. In order to successfully deliver on these tasks I had to sell the program by networking across the entire University. This experience absolutely helps me in my new role. Like EcoCAR, the work I do at Amazon is very unstructured, and in order to get things done you’ve got to get out there, take ownership and invent my own solutions.
Question: Have you connected with the UW EcoCAR 2 program since becoming an alumnus?
I keep in contact with the UW team, but I have not been very involved since my departure. I am hiring computer scientists, however! So if you’re a recent graduate and you’re interested in big data, payments and machine learning, send me your resume!
Question: Do you have any tips to current team members, future alumni on how to maximize their EcoCAR 2 experience?
The EcoCAR competition creates incredible opportunity for learning, and finding employment. So work hard, take on as much responsibility as you can, perform well and earn the trust of your teammates. You’ll be glad you did.
