10 Years at AWS: Lessons from Building at Scale
This month marks 10 years since I joined Amazon Web Services (AWS), fresh out of business school. Over the past decade, working across expansion strategy, AI, and global cloud infrastructure at scale, I’ve had a front-row seat to how large, complex systems get built and what makes them endure.
A few lessons stand out.
1. Teams build everything.
Nothing meaningful at AWS is done alone. Durable systems emerge from diverse teams working across cultures, time zones, and years. AWS Regions are the product of hundreds of teams aligning around a shared outcome well beyond the first delivery milestones.
2. Long-term thinking is a real competitive advantage.
The hardest problems take years to solve and create the most customer value when done right. The AWS European Sovereign Cloud is one example, a multi-year effort that only works if you invest patiently before results are visible.
3. At scale, operational excellence compounds trust.
Customers don’t experience strategy. They experience availability, latency, security, and reliability every day. I’ve been part of countless services reviews and escalations with one goal: make sure customers have what they need, when they need it.
4. Small mechanisms beat big plans.
Clear ownership, metrics, and feedback loops outperform vague ambition. At Amazon, we call these “mechanisms.” The best leaders focus teams on what they can control, even amid uncertainty.
5. Senior leaders as champions and energizers.
The best leaders inject speed into organizational processes. They roll up their metaphorical sleeves, ask questions, break silos, remove friction, and energize teams to think bigger and move faster. It’s an art as much as a science.
I’m grateful to the teams, leaders, customers, and partners I’ve worked with over the past decade, and excited to keep building as AI and cloud infrastructure continue to evolve.
Onward.