Aditi Goyal‘s path to the data engineering field is lined with struggles and successes. Goyal was an excellent student who pursued a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science Engineering straight out of high school. Since then, she has become a senior data engineer at Amazon Alexa.
As a data engineer, Goyal is responsible for designing, constructing, and maintaining the architecture used for data processing and storage. This includes managing systems that integrate, process, and store data, as well as working with teams to ensure that data is accessible and usable for analytics and decision-making.
Data engineers like Goyal typically build and maintain data pipelines that handle data ingestion, transformation, and storage across various sources. Yet, this technical field was not always her chosen career—covering a story that spans two continents and numerous positions.
Early Career as a Support Engineer
After achieving her Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science Engineering, Goyal worked for a year as a support engineer in India. Here, she assisted customers and team members regarding technical issues related to her specialization. “The work was grueling but also fulfilling. I learned so much as a support member,” Goyal states.
Despite her effectiveness as a support engineer, she soon realized her love for working with data and solving problems. This motivated her to pursue a Master’s in Information Systems from Northeastern University. Goyal strategically chose a curriculum with a strong computer science technology focus and an emphasis on the data track, eventually opting for analytics over software development roles.
Internship and Real-World Experience
During her internship at Partners Healthcare, Goyal independently transitioned its legacy database to a cloud platform within three months, gaining valuable experience in real-world data security and data handling. This experience solidified her passion for working with data and laid the groundwork for her future endeavors.
After finishing her master’s, Goyal began her journey at Amazon Robotics in Boston as an entry-level data analyst. She seized the opportunity to build an analytics team from scratch and grew as a data analyst. Recognizing the diverse nature of data-related roles, Goyal transitioned to a business intelligence engineer within a year, building high-performance and high-visibility dashboards for leadership to monitor Prime Day sales.
Driven by her curiosity about making raw data available in a useful form, Goyal tried her hand at building small ETL (extract, transform, load) processes. Within a year, she transitioned into a data engineer role, creating a robust and scalable platform to store and maintain data for different teams to use for their analyses. “Something about it just—well, it clicked. It feels like I was born for this field,” Goyal remarks.
Senior Data Engineer at Amazon Alexa
In February 2021, Goyal moved to Amazon Alexa as a data engineer and was soon promoted to senior data engineer. In her current role, she helps teams access valuable data to drive insights and supports them in moving their projects within Alexa.
Goyal remains excited to learn new techniques and build solutions to complex problems, always striving to help her team succeed. “When you look at it, decision-making needs well-structured data to be effective. Otherwise, you’re just stumbling around in the dark,” she says.
Aditi Goyal’s journey from a support engineer to a senior data engineer at Amazon demonstrates her passion and adaptability for continuous learning. Her ability to identify opportunities, acquire new skills, and seamlessly transition across roles has been instrumental in her remarkable career progression.
