Alumni Spotlight: James Bigbee ’16

In this brief interview, James Bigbee ’16 shares his journey from computer science to working on innovative technology at Audible. James reflects on how Waynflete prepared him for his academic and professional pursuits and discusses his personal passions.

Can you tell us about your college experience and career trajectory? What did you major in? How did Waynflete prepare you/impact your secondary education and career?
“After graduating from Waynflete, I spent four years at the University of Pennsylvania, where I majored in computer science and minored in art. Upon graduation, I moved to Seattle, where I worked at Microsoft, developing firmware deployment automation for Azure Cloud devices. After two years, I moved to New York City and worked at Audible on page content aggregation for app experiences. Waynflete gave me the strong foundation in math, science, and the humanities [that] I needed… to not only get into the college of my choice, but also to approach challenging courses with a level of confidence. Furthermore, I felt somewhat fearless in exploring multiple interests from coding, animation, and music.”

What are you passionate about? What inspires you and motivates you?
“I enjoy coding, but I feel like my passions are often outside of work. I spend a frankly absurd amount of time working on my Halloween costume in the fall—whether that involves using papier mâché to build a mask or sewing patterns to fit the mask. Also, I recently started running, an activity that I used to despise but now find very grounding.” 

Why does what you do matter?
“I am dyslexic and though the difficulties that come with dyslexia were remediated and reading became a joy, my initial exposure to—and love for—books came through listening to them. Therefore, it feels special to me to work on projects that improve an app that allows so many people to listen to audiobooks.”

What do you love most about what you do?
“There is something very neat about successfully developing a feature for a popular software application. Any feature implemented has the potential to be used by millions of users, which means even the smallest change can have the capacity to improve millions of peoples’ experience whilst using the app.”