Working on the technology of the future

Danesh Hewasiribaddana | Software Engineering

Danesh joined global tech giant Amazon Prime Air’s computer scientists and engineers over the summer to work on the next-generation drone delivery system.

Getting a big head start in his software engineering career, Danesh, fifth-year Engineering and Astrophysics student, along with four other Monash Engineering undergraduate students, flew to Seattle in the USA to undertake a three-month Co-operative Education Program internship at Amazon Prime Air.

Amazon Prime Air’s drone delivery service feels like something from science fiction, but this futuristic technology could one day become just as common as seeing a delivery van pull up outside your house. Danesh and his fellow interns worked with Prime Air technical mentors and managers, providing a fresh new perspective to help innovate and create solutions for drone delivery service.

Danesh worked in the Hawk team, which is responsible for the post-flight maintenance and record-keeping systems to ensure that it meets FFA standards. After the drone flies, maintenance checks need to be performed to make sure that it is up to FFA standards and is still allowed to fly afterwards. And if any work needs to be performed on the drone, that it will be completed.

“One of the projects that I worked on as part of my internship was to develop an auto-population of drone post-flight maintenance tasks. The original setup was manual and a user would have to enter the tasks and information. In the new system, the auto-completion or the auto-population is responsible for adding those tasks to a drone, allowing them to automatically start working on them.

I had a wonderful supportive mentor and manager in the Hawk team, who I plan to stay in contact with after the internship. Working with all the mentors and supervisors at Amazon Prime Air has been a great experience. They were very welcoming and supportive. If I had any questions, they were always there to answer them and open to helping me out and giving constructive feedback. Learning was promoted as the number one goal. And that encourages you to push yourself forward.

This internship has been a really enlightening experience and has reignited my passion for software engineering and the industry. I've learned so many new things and my technical skills have greatly improved. My career aspirations have grown and I can see a path forward to become a more senior expert in the software engineering industry.”

Danesh travel scenery shots

Find out more about Software Engineering.

Learn more about the Co-operative Education Internship program.