After the first lockdown in 2020, Amazon Australia Brand Specialist Paulo decided he needed to get fitter – so he took himself along to a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class, and a passion was sparked.

“I took it up as a way to get fit after the first lockdown,” he laughs.

“You know, you're at home and you're eating and not exercising, it just catches up to you. So, I joined a Jiu-Jitsu studio, which originally was intended to just be a fitness thing – but then it became a passion, because you learn something while getting fit. And you have fun, and you make friends, and it's all these benefits, with no downsides. It just makes sense.”

And he wants everyone to have a go!

“I highly recommend it, whether you're a teenager or 50 year-old, male or female,” Paulo says.

“My first day I went to Jiu-Jitsu, I was paired up with this 16-year-old girl. I'm not a small person, but within 30 seconds she had a choke on me. She’s half my size and has an unassuming sort of appearance and then within 30 seconds, my ego was crushed!”

Paulo works as a Brand Specialist at Amazon where he helps brands grow their business online, and at the moment helps strategise for Prime Day. Paulo is one of the many Australians that works behind the scenes to bring Amazon’s massive shopping event Prime Day, exclusively to Prime members. This year, Prime Day will offer Australian Prime members epic savings with more deals than ever before across more than one hundred thousand products from both big brands and small local businesses.

Between work, studying for his Masters in Business Analytics and his passion for keeping fit, Paulo is a busy man – so he’s grateful to have a job that allows him the flexibility he needs to maintain a good work-life balance.

Paulo says working a few days a week from home, and the ownership he has over his own work schedule enables him to balance his work and other commitments.

“I study, I do Jiu-Jitsu and I go to the gym regularly,” he explains.

“Amazon's very flexible in the sense that the role that I do means I can set up meetings whenever best suits me and my vendors.”

What’s the most rewarding thing about your job?

The most rewarding thing is learning something new every day. At the moment, as part of my training, I'm digging deep into the SQL (Structured Query Language) platforms that we have and I'm starting to create some queries to see how all the data talks to each other in the system, and how I can create my reports to be sent to me and automated. So I’ve found that pretty cool – Amazon is quite unique in terms of that data management.

If you had to describe your team at Amazon in one word, what would it be?

One word? Supportive. As a newbie, the onboarding process has been very smooth. There are so many avenues of support and help.

Has anything surprised you about working at Amazon?

The culture is something that surprised me. It is a very modern business in terms of its approach to ways of working. It's flexible. It allows you to actually experiment strategically. And it also allows you to be curious and to delve into that curiosity in more detail, rather than just fill it with a set process. So that's something that did surprise me.

What’s been your favourite or most-used Amazon purchase so far?

Most used…man, I’ve basically bought my whole house. I’d say my Air Pods Max. Actually – no, my Jiu-Jitsu Gi!