What it takes for a Bangladeshi student to land a job at Amazon
Coming from a middle-class family, for Rabita, studying abroad meant expenses that her family couldn’t afford. But as opportunities unfolded, she eventually made her way to Canada and is now working as a software engineer at Amazon
When Fariha Zerin Rabita left Bangladesh in 2021, she did not know where the path would lead.
Five years into her life in Canada, she has held 15 on-campus jobs, completed three co-op placements across different industries, and now works as a Software Development Engineer at Amazon in Toronto.
How the journey began
Rabita was drawn to maths and problem-solving from an early age. But computers entered her life through an inherited PC from her brother, through games, and through the curiosity of understanding how things worked. Eventually, she discovered HTML and CSS.
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"I still remember how amazed I felt when I realised I could write a few lines of code and something would show up on a screen," she recalls. "It felt like magic."
Like many students in Bangladesh, BUET was the goal and engineering seemed like the natural path. Then Covid happened.
She was from the HSC 2020 batch. Exams were postponed and uncertainty stretched on for months. During that period, her brother, who was already living in Canada, asked why she was only considering the usual path.
"At first, it seemed impossible," she says. "I came from a middle-class family and to me, studying abroad meant spending a huge amount of money which my family couldn't simply afford."
She began researching universities and scholarships. Her parents told her honestly what they could afford each year, and she narrowed her options around that figure. She applied to universities in both Canada and the United States and eventually received scholarships from both.
Dalhousie stood out because of its scholarship, co-op opportunities and overall fit. She received the Seymour Schulich Scholarship, valued at $44,400 over four years. It did not cover everything, but it made studying abroad financially possible.
Her biggest fear was not the logistics of moving abroad but whether she could manage on her own.
The early months in Canada tested that independence. Rabita started working part-time at a stadium to help cover her costs. But the toll it took was not worth it.
"The work drained so much mental and physical energy that, by the time I came home, I barely had anything left to study, focus, or think about what was next."
That realisation changed how she approached employment. If she had to work to support herself, she wanted those jobs to help build her career as well.
Over four years, she took on 15 on-campus positions, including Residence Assistant, Head Teaching Assistant for Intro to Computer Systems, Faculty Ambassador, Co-op Ambassador, IT Services and roles in the BIPOC Mentoring Academy. As a teaching assistant, she led labs for more than 150 students across four consecutive semesters.
"Some roles helped me become more confident with people," she says. "Some helped me learn how to lead. Some helped me communicate better, manage responsibility, or understand how the university worked beyond the classroom."
Three co-ops, three industries
For Rabita, co-op placements became a way to gain industry experience and figure out what kind of software career she wanted.
Her first placement was at Munich Re in Toronto as a Global IT Intern. She had no Canadian industry experience and applied to at least 100 companies. She repeatedly revised her CV, cover letters and interview answers, treating each rejection as feedback.
"Getting that role felt huge because it was my first real corporate experience in Canada," she says.
Her second placement took her in a completely different direction. At Ubisoft Halifax, she worked as a Junior Programmer. Having first developed an interest in computers through games, she enjoyed contributing to a prototype for an unreleased game and working on Assassin's Creed-related projects.
"Do not wait until your final year to start becoming employable. Start now, even if it feels small. Build something beyond grades. Learn to explain what you have built, what problems you solved and what you learned."
But the experience also helped her understand what she did not want.
"I realised that while game development is exciting, it was not the path I wanted long term. That clarity was valuable too."
Her third co-op was at Arctic Wolf, a cybersecurity company, where she worked on backend development.
There, she helped improve an automated security-reporting system that was taking around 24 hours to generate reports. She helped build and deploy a microservice called the Risk Analysis Publisher, which processed data, transformed it into structured reports, validated it and sent it through an API.
The new system reduced report-generation time from roughly 24 hours to around three hours — an improvement of more than 85%.
"I got to work on backend development in a real cybersecurity environment, and I got to make something meaningfully faster," she says.
By the time she was approaching graduation, the three placements had given her more than experience. They paved her way to the next destination.
How Rabita landed at Amazon
Amazon had always been one of Rabita's dream companies. The opportunity came two months before graduation.
During her final semester in Summer 2025, she regularly checked LinkedIn and company career websites for new graduate positions. She knew big tech postings could attract hundreds of applications, so she made a habit of applying early.
For Amazon, she applied directly through the company's website. She tailored her cover letter to the company's Leadership Principles and made her CV impact-oriented, focusing not only on what she had done but on what had changed as a result.
"I do not think I ever felt completely ready. But once I got the interview, I decided I would give it everything."
After her application was shortlisted, she completed a three-hour online assessment involving two coding questions and a behavioural section. She was then invited to the final interview stage, with three one-hour rounds.
The first two were technical, covering coding, problem-solving, edge cases, and time and space complexity. The third focused on Amazon's Leadership Principles and her past experiences with challenges, ownership, ambiguity and decision-making.
"If I see an opportunity or a problem, I usually want to jump in and figure it out," she says. "I think those have always been part of how I work."
The process from application to offer took around two months. She started at Amazon in September 2025, before graduating in October.
Her job is demanding. A typical day involves checking Slack and email, coding, code reviews, stand-ups, meetings with product managers, one-on-ones, system design discussions, testing and debugging. Once a week, there is sprint planning.
And sometimes, there is a 4am call.
"When I go on call, I can get paged at any time, sometimes even at 4am, when I need to acknowledge an issue within 15 minutes before it escalates to the management chain," she says. "That is not the aesthetic part of the job, but it is part of the reality."
Rabita acknowledges her social media content does not always show that side. Her day-in-the-life videos and glimpses of Toronto life tend to capture the better moments.
"Some people see my videos and think my job must be stress-free because the content looks nice. That is not true. There are stressful days at work. There are deadlines, pressure to deliver, competitive environments, and moments when I feel burnt out."
Still, she has no regrets.
"I love my job more than I hate the hard parts, and that is why I keep going."
Her advice to students is straightforward.
"Do not wait until your final year to start becoming employable. Start now, even if it feels small. Build something beyond grades. Learn to explain what you have built, what problems you solved and what you learned."
