4/15/2020 Maddie Yang 3 min read
Written by Maddie Yang
While at Illinois, Nobre was extensively involved in recruitment/new student programs as well as the Baja SAE team. He was a tour guide for the MechSE Department and The Grainger College of Engineering, giving tours throughout the engineering quads and the labs in MEL. He was also an Engineering Learning Assistant (ELA) for ENG 100 and ENG 198 (a projects class) during his junior and senior years. As the recruitment head of the Dean’s Student Advisory Committee (DSAC), he led online webinars and on-campus events. For the Baja SAE team, Nobre worked on carbon fiber body panels as well as other part designs, but his primary contribution focused on the “organizational aspects of managing our budget, applying for funding within the college and university, reaching out to donors, establishing a new website for us, and more, as the public relations lead,” he said. Additionally, he was a member of ASME, where he participated in EOH exhibits.
Nobre interned at Amazon the summer between his sophomore and junior years, when a professor recognized his involvement in class and passed along his resume. His internship was with Amazon Facilities & Maintenance in one of their largest fulfillment centers. “It was a great experience to get a taste of the daily hustle and energy, see how the building ran, and work on a few continuous improvement projects, one of which was eventually implemented at all new flagship fulfillment centers!” The next year he interned at Eaton Corporation to get a different experience, but ultimately wanted to go back to Amazon his senior year.
Since graduating in 2015, Nobre has held two main roles at Amazon, starting as a Project Engineer, where he oversaw the installation and commissioning of material handling equipment in new fulfillment centers. “Nearly all of the manufacturing and installation is outsourced to other companies, so I was the on-site link to make sure things were being installed on time, to our standard, and functioning correctly - especially where more complex logic was involved.” During this role, he launched the first building in South America, and met the Emerging Countries team, who gave him the opportunity to work with them as the Program Manager of Emerging Countries. “Being a dual-citizen and a fluent speaker of Portuguese made this a natural role for me.” He continues to work with on-site execution, but also is involved with capacity and topology planning.
“The way engineering makes you think critically has been essential to success in my work life and I value that skill above anything else. The ability to juggle several projects and priorities at once is also something I really refined at Illinois and has been invaluable in my career.”