Sheridan Martin, Senior Design Technologist, Amazon
Sheridan is a senior design technologist at Amazon. She loves to build prototypes and tinker with technology is creative ways. She loves her job as she gets to apply her creative curious skills to solving problems in new and innovative ways! Have you heard of Amazon lockers? These are the lockers where Amazon will deliver packages for customers to collect their items. She worked on the early versions of the lockers to figure out the best locks and digital inputs for the customers to use, and investigate if there were other ways Amazon could engage with the customers to make them feel special or make them smile or happy as they collected their packages.
Sheridan grew up in south-western Washington in a small town. Her graduating class was about 80 in number. She didn't have the easiest time in school as the things she loved to do wasn't always appreciated by her teachers, but she did like to learn! Sometimes she asked the teachers if she could accomplish assignments in different ways. One project was about vocab words and rather than write about what the words meant she asked the teacher if she could draw pictures of the words and represent the words in the art work. Another project was to do with learning about N. Dakota, and rather than writing about the state, Sheridan negotiated with the teacher to create a game to learn about N. Dakota. In her words she was able to determine what the spirit of the assignment was and negotiate a way she would enjoy doing the work with the teacher, and also thinking if there is something the teacher can get out of you completing the assignment in a different way.
After high school she went to Washington State University. Her parents were worried about her taking classes that would lead to her being about to make money. So she took some marketing and business classes. However this wasn't the path that suited Sheridan. After two years at university she left. She then had a few jobs as she moved into the next phase of her life. She worked in a Subway as a sandwich designer ;) She worked in a book bindery. She then worked for a longer period in a shopping mall piercing ears!
She decided after a couple of years she wanted to try college again, so went to Seattle Pacific Lutheran. She got her first tech job while at SPU on the computer help desk. She didn't know anything about computers at the time but did know a lot about dealing with people who were stressed (after all, she had been piercing hundreds of peoples ears and there were definitely customers who were very stressed!). She really liked working with computers and learning about technology. She started to stay up late to learn more and more, at the time HTML was a new coding language. She liked to make things with the code, and also realized she really liked making things in general - it was an outlet for her creative side and for her tinkering and problem solving side.
She got a job at Microsoft and was asked to make web pages and new widgets with html and the latest html code. While at Microsoft she had several different jobs, all the jobs took advantage of her creative technology curiosity. She worked on the Xbox team, Zune (music player) and Hololens. One of the most fun projects was working on a dress called the Printing Dress! She got to learn about soft circuits that could be attached to fabrics, conductive threads, and made buttons out of sponges so people could type on the dress, and what people typed would then be projected on the dress from inside. The project was shown at several events including Fashion Week in New York at Bloomingdales! link to article on Printing Dress
Sheridan has always enjoyed learning to sew with non-conventional materials like paper and cardboard. She mentioned how much fun it is to go into a fabric stores with a volt meter to use of buttons, zippers, and various materials to see what will conduct a current!
Currently Sheridan is working at Amazon as a senior design technologist. She prototypes things - this means she comes up with solutions to problems and rapidly makes it so people on the team can see what a solution could be. However the important part of her job as a prototyper is that what she builds is not in the final product, because she isn't building her solution the best way, but a quick way so the team can see if this type of solution is what they're looking for. Good fast prototyping can save a company a lot of money because they don't waste time and money on building a product and realizing too late that it is not what they want.
A recent project she is proud of is her Amazon Sphere Dress (Link to article on Sphere Dress). Before Amazon opened their new spheres building they invited people to do something that related to the spirit of the spheres. Many people submitted photographs but not Sheridan. She created an dress based on the design of the spheres! She made it out of duct tape, tracing paper, and dowels. She received a lot of attention with her innovative dress.
Sheridan doesn't only apply her skills to her work, but she uses them on personal projects too. She is very interested in fitness, and so has been inventing some apps that help her know if she's exercising the right way when she lifts weights. She has lots of ideas she is excited to work on.
Sheridan offers the advice that there is no one right way to get a job or go to college, you have to find a path that feels right and works for you. She says she got several of her jobs not because she had the formal qualifications for the job but because she could show people what she can do, she tells them about her experience.
Sheridan is a senior design technologist at Amazon. She loves to build prototypes and tinker with technology is creative ways. She loves her job as she gets to apply her creative curious skills to solving problems in new and innovative ways! Have you heard of Amazon lockers? These are the lockers where Amazon will deliver packages for customers to collect their items. She worked on the early versions of the lockers to figure out the best locks and digital inputs for the customers to use, and investigate if there were other ways Amazon could engage with the customers to make them feel special or make them smile or happy as they collected their packages.
Sheridan grew up in south-western Washington in a small town. Her graduating class was about 80 in number. She didn't have the easiest time in school as the things she loved to do wasn't always appreciated by her teachers, but she did like to learn! Sometimes she asked the teachers if she could accomplish assignments in different ways. One project was about vocab words and rather than write about what the words meant she asked the teacher if she could draw pictures of the words and represent the words in the art work. Another project was to do with learning about N. Dakota, and rather than writing about the state, Sheridan negotiated with the teacher to create a game to learn about N. Dakota. In her words she was able to determine what the spirit of the assignment was and negotiate a way she would enjoy doing the work with the teacher, and also thinking if there is something the teacher can get out of you completing the assignment in a different way.
After high school she went to Washington State University. Her parents were worried about her taking classes that would lead to her being about to make money. So she took some marketing and business classes. However this wasn't the path that suited Sheridan. After two years at university she left. She then had a few jobs as she moved into the next phase of her life. She worked in a Subway as a sandwich designer ;) She worked in a book bindery. She then worked for a longer period in a shopping mall piercing ears!
She decided after a couple of years she wanted to try college again, so went to Seattle Pacific Lutheran. She got her first tech job while at SPU on the computer help desk. She didn't know anything about computers at the time but did know a lot about dealing with people who were stressed (after all, she had been piercing hundreds of peoples ears and there were definitely customers who were very stressed!). She really liked working with computers and learning about technology. She started to stay up late to learn more and more, at the time HTML was a new coding language. She liked to make things with the code, and also realized she really liked making things in general - it was an outlet for her creative side and for her tinkering and problem solving side.
She got a job at Microsoft and was asked to make web pages and new widgets with html and the latest html code. While at Microsoft she had several different jobs, all the jobs took advantage of her creative technology curiosity. She worked on the Xbox team, Zune (music player) and Hololens. One of the most fun projects was working on a dress called the Printing Dress! She got to learn about soft circuits that could be attached to fabrics, conductive threads, and made buttons out of sponges so people could type on the dress, and what people typed would then be projected on the dress from inside. The project was shown at several events including Fashion Week in New York at Bloomingdales! link to article on Printing Dress
Sheridan has always enjoyed learning to sew with non-conventional materials like paper and cardboard. She mentioned how much fun it is to go into a fabric stores with a volt meter to use of buttons, zippers, and various materials to see what will conduct a current!
Currently Sheridan is working at Amazon as a senior design technologist. She prototypes things - this means she comes up with solutions to problems and rapidly makes it so people on the team can see what a solution could be. However the important part of her job as a prototyper is that what she builds is not in the final product, because she isn't building her solution the best way, but a quick way so the team can see if this type of solution is what they're looking for. Good fast prototyping can save a company a lot of money because they don't waste time and money on building a product and realizing too late that it is not what they want.
A recent project she is proud of is her Amazon Sphere Dress (Link to article on Sphere Dress). Before Amazon opened their new spheres building they invited people to do something that related to the spirit of the spheres. Many people submitted photographs but not Sheridan. She created an dress based on the design of the spheres! She made it out of duct tape, tracing paper, and dowels. She received a lot of attention with her innovative dress.
Sheridan doesn't only apply her skills to her work, but she uses them on personal projects too. She is very interested in fitness, and so has been inventing some apps that help her know if she's exercising the right way when she lifts weights. She has lots of ideas she is excited to work on.
Sheridan offers the advice that there is no one right way to get a job or go to college, you have to find a path that feels right and works for you. She says she got several of her jobs not because she had the formal qualifications for the job but because she could show people what she can do, she tells them about her experience.