What surprises you most about the community builders program?

How much of a global community we are. There's always room for improvement in terms of diversity, but this group has exceeded my initial expectations in that area.

What’s your background and your experience with AWS?

I've always worked for smaller companies. Since we were small development teams, we didn't have enough resources for on-prem hosting and reached for the cloud. So far for all of my jobs the choice choice has been AWS.

I've been an AWS user since 2017 and have mostly worked with serverless technologies.

What’s the biggest benefit you see from the program?

The people! AWS is not an easy thing to learn, so it's been helpful to have extra resources within the community for ideas on how to use the various services as well as tips/tricks on how to best use those services.

Also having more direct access to AWS employees has been helpful. It's great to be able to give product feedback, report bugs, and to get more insight into why something was built the way it was directly from the source.

What’s the next swag item that you would like to get?

I'm not a huge "stuff" person. While swag can be nice, it is also wasteful to the environment if it's something I don't want/use. I think I'd prefer we get more non physical perks such as AWS credits and certification vouchers. Another neat idea that I've seen is companies donating to a person's non-profit of choice instead of swag.

What are you eating for dinner today? Share the recipe!

It's currently 7:30am as I write this and I'm not sure yet. I guess I like to live on the edge.

Is there anything else you would like to share about the community builders program in 2022?

Anyone who is passionate about building on AWS, that has a growth mindset, and likes to share their knowledge to help the wider community is a good fit in my personal opinion. Even if you don't think you've been working in AWS for long enough, apply anyway. The worst that can happen is you don't get accepted and can apply again in the future.

This community is very collaborative, and we build each other up. I'm grateful to be a part of it.