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When you place an Amazon order online and the product reaches you quickly, thank a robot. While you’re at it, thank Sharon Aluma ’15 as well.

She’s a senior technical product manager in the core software group at Amazon Robotics (AR), an Amazon subsidiary.

“Before robots were used in our fulfillment centers, warehouse associates had to walk several miles a day through hundreds of aisles of product to find the items they needed to fill customer orders, which was very time consuming,” Aluma says. “At AR, we orchestrate thou-sands of robots to locate items among expansive fields of inventory and bring them to associates working at stations, who then pick the items to be packaged and shipped to customers.

“The software solutions my team and I design provide the data visibility that Amazon operations teams need to better understand the performance of their robotics systems and take real-time, data-driven actions to resolve issues and continuously improve in delivering for customers.”

Before AR, Aluma was a software implementation project manager for Epic, an electronic medical records company. She credits campus organizations such as the Society of Women Engineers and Alpha Omega Epsilon Engineering Sorority, along with key Watson College faculty members, for giving her the support she needed to pursue her career.

“My professional career has spanned several roles, companies and industries, and has followed an anything but traditional path,” Aluma says. “As an engineer, I’m first and foremost a problem solver — and there are problems to be solved everywhere. I encourage anyone thinking about their future to keep an open mind and trust your gut. Chances are you won’t regret it!”