This article explores the experiences of women in tech at a leading cloud company, Amazon Web Services (AWS). It provides an insider’s perspective on the role of a solutions architect (SA) and highlights how diverse perspectives drive innovation. Three women share their unique journeys, challenges, and successes in cloud architecture.
What exactly does a solutions architect do?
Solutions architects bridge the gap between a customer’s business challenges and the latest technology solutions. At AWS, SAs perform this role daily. In practice, this involves:
- Working backwards from customer challenges – Instead of promoting technology for its own sake, SAs begin by understanding what customers aim to achieve. This involves embedding with customer teams to grasp their unique needs.
- Designing the blueprint – SAs act as architects, but for systems. They create system architecture diagrams and define the software services that power customer businesses.
- Guiding through every stage – From initial concept to full implementation, SAs provide the technical roadmap tailored to a customer’s project lifecycle.
AWS SAs act as trusted technical advisors across various industries, from startups to global enterprises. They help align technology choices with business goals, minimize risks, and support a smooth, standardized journey to the cloud.
Why does representation matter in tech?
Diverse teams are not merely beneficial; they are proven engines of innovation that boost productivity and results. Organizations lacking diversity risk stifling creativity and limiting their capacity to address complex challenges.
Research by Gartner, a leading global research and advisory firm specializing in business and technology, supports this, indicating that organizations with stronger women representation achieve better financial performance. For more information, review Culture of Value for Women in Technology Drives Business Performance.
These findings demonstrate that gender diversity is not just ethically sound; it is a competitive advantage directly impacting an organization’s ability to innovate and succeed.
AWS is committed to equal opportunities and career advancement for all genders. However, the broader industry faces a significant gender gap in technical roles. Gartner reports that women constitute only 26% of information technology (IT) employees, with even lower representation in senior leadership. For more information, review How Women in IT Are Championing Change.
AWS is actively working to address this gap through initiatives such as:
- Women’s Networking Circles, which connect women with peers facing similar challenges.
- Project Inclusion initiatives, designed to increase women’s participation in technical interviews.
- The AWS Women in SA affinity group, offering mentorship, certification guidance, and career progression support.
-
https://www.youtube.com/@awsshebuilds/
, an AWS initiative aimed at building diverse tech communities and empowering women to build on AWS and develop their skills.
- Amazon rekindle, a return-to-work program for women re-entering the technology sector after a career break.
Numerous women in tech-focused initiatives exist at AWS. Further details can be found at How AWS is helping women and girls succeed in technology careers, AWS Public Sector Blogs – Women in Tech, and AWS Startups Blogs – Women In Tech.
Real Stories: Challenges, Solutions, and Impact
Representation fosters possibility, whether one is starting in technology, changing careers, or advancing in a current role. Witnessing someone with a similar background succeed can transform an aspirational path into an achievable one. This section shares authentic journeys and insights, emphasizing that every success story is valuable.
Kayalvizhi: From Senior to Principal SA — A Career Trajectory
How does one advance in a technical role while raising two teenagers?
Kayalvizhi joined AWS India as a senior SA in late 2020, gaining opportunities to work with cloud-native leaders such as OLA, Zepto, redBus, and Azira. These organizations, built on the cloud and known for pushing AWS capabilities, provided invaluable learning experiences across diverse technologies while she supported their cloud journeys.
With a background in application development, Kayalvizhi sought to enhance her containerization expertise by joining the Technical Field Community (TFC), an AWS internal expert network connecting SAs with domain specialists. The TFC functions as a technical support system where mentors guide professional development in specific technology areas.
When deep expertise in artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML), databases, or other technology or industry domains is required, the TFC connects SAs with global experts. For more details, watch
. Kayalvizhi began with the Containers TFC and later expanded to the Database TFC. This not only facilitated learning but also opened doors to support customers globally.
A key aspect of Kayalvizhi’s approach is her passion for sharing knowledge gained from supporting customer business needs with the broader technical community through various channels.
AWS Blogs: She authored seven architectural posts, five of which highlighted significant customer outcomes:
- How Zepto scales to millions of orders per day using Amazon DynamoDB
- Ola Money achieved operational excellence, disaster recovery site in Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region, and up to 60% cost savings using Amazon Aurora
- A dive into redBus’s data platform and how they used Amazon QuickSight to accelerate business insights
- Evolution of Koo’s database and how they connected millions of voices using Amazon DynamoDB
- How Near reduced latency by four times and achieved 99.9% uptime by migrating to Amazon ElastiCache
AWS Summits: Kayalvizhi regularly presents at AWS events, with her most rewarding experiences being customer co-presentations showcasing their success stories. Notable examples include “Zepto’s growth story powered by AWS,” “Accelerate generative AI deployment with Amazon SageMaker JumpStart” featuring OLA Krutrim’s transformation, and “How Koo used Amazon DynamoDB to connect millions of voices globally.”
AWS code samples: As a software engineer, she has built solutions to address real-world customer challenges through hands-on development. For instance, when a customer needed to stream Internet of Things (IoT) sensor data from their Apache Kafka clusters to an Amazon Timestream table, she developed the Timestream – Kafka Sink Connector, enabling data streaming between services. Recognizing its broader utility, she published it on GitHub: AWS Samples; watch this video
for more details.
Mentor: Diversity in technology is a driving passion, leading to active participation in Amazon rekindle, where she guides and empowers women returning to the technology sector after career breaks.
By consistently applying Amazon Leadership Principles – such as
,
, and
– Kayalvizhi progressed to principal SA, demonstrating that technical excellence combined with customer focus fosters significant career momentum.
Personal balance: Managing professional achievements while raising two teenage daughters involves finding energizing activities outside of work. Kayalvizhi finds this balance in chess, a lifelong passion shared with her daughters. Her elder daughter recently secured first place in her age group at a national tournament.
To learn more about Kayalvizhi’s professional journey, see her LinkedIn Profile: Kayalvizhi Kandasamy
Smita: Global Transition Leading to Career Growth
Is it possible to successfully pivot a career path, even during a pandemic?
Smita’s journey began in Australia as a professional services consultant, a role involving direct work with customers to implement cloud solutions. When the global pandemic occurred, she faced a difficult choice: remain in Australia or move closer to family in India.
AWS supported her decision, facilitating her transition from Australia to India and helping her shift from Professional Services to Solution Architecture. This career pivot necessitated learning new skills while adapting to a new country and role.
Innovation: Smita’s diverse background has become a strength, enabling her to undertake innovative projects with the latest technologies. She is equally enthusiastic about knowledge dissemination, frequently utilizing
https://www.youtube.com/@amazonwebservices
and the GitHub: AWS-Samples repository.
-
: When India’s leading food delivery system, Swiggy, encountered difficulties converting natural language queries into SQL commands, Smita assisted them by integrating Amazon Bedrock to create a faster, more accurate solution.
-
and
: She supported Swiggy in streamlining their development process using AWS CodeArtifact, ensuring secure and easy access to dependencies.
-
: Utilizing Amazon Rekognition and Amazon Textract, she automated identity verification processes, reducing fraud and enhancing user experience.
-
: Video editing can be time-consuming, but with Amazon Rekognition, it becomes significantly more efficient. The video linked at the start of this bullet point and the code provide additional details.
- Security:
- To help protect applications from common web exploits, she authored this code for deploying AWS WAF rules using AWS Firewall Manager.
- To create a more secure and efficient authorization mechanism for REST APIs developed with Amazon API Gateway and AWS Lambda, she authored this code, which implements a Lambda authorizer with a third-party identity provider for effective access control.
Personal balance: As a mother to an energetic 8-year-old, Smita adopted creative strategies for work-life integration. Her approach involves completing work by 6 pm and avoiding late-night calls unless essential. She and her daughter take music classes together, which serves as bonding time and a way to remain present in her daughter’s life.
To learn more about Smita’s professional journey, see her LinkedIn Profile: Smita Srivastava.
Archana: Six Years of Growth Across Multiple Roles
What does it entail to build deep expertise while continuously expanding one’s impact?
Archana’s journey with AWS spans over six years, beginning as a cloud support engineer. This foundation enabled her to develop deep expertise in serverless and security services, leading her to become a subject matter expert in Amazon API Gateway, AWS Lambda, and Amazon Cognito.
As a member of the Serverless TFC, she collaborates with fellow experts to provide architectural guidance to customers facing complex challenges. She has shared her experiences at AWS re:Invent, conducting hands-on workshops on event-driven architectures and API Gateway implementations.
Mentorship Mission: Fostering diversity in technology is a passion for Archana, who actively participates in AWS SheBuilds, mentoring aspiring women both within and outside Amazon pursuing tech careers.
Content Creation: Her technical contributions extend beyond direct customer engagements. She has authored nearly 12 AWS code samples and AWS Knowledge Center articles, sharing her expertise with the broader AWS community. Examples include:
- She developed a solution to transcribe and generate subtitles for audio and video content at scale, using Amazon Transcribe and AWS Lambda, based on a customer need. By publishing this on GitHub – AWS Samples, she ensured other customers could benefit.
- While assisting a customer with Amazon Cognito password reset functionality where users were not receiving verification codes via email or SMS, she created this comprehensive troubleshooting guide.
- In collaboration with a customer needing an AI-powered image generation service for their e-commerce system, she developed this serverless solution using the Amazon Nova Canvas model. This solution enabled their team to generate professional product images on-demand via a simple API call.
Personal balance: Beyond her professional achievements, Archana maintains a balanced personal life as an avid reader, fitness enthusiast, and traveler. She and her husband volunteer at animal shelters, finding fulfillment in advocating for the voiceless.
To learn more about Archana’s professional journey, see her LinkedIn Profile: Archana Venkat.
Frequently Asked Questions
The journeys of women SAs at AWS are diverse, encompassing both professional and personal accomplishments. These stories aim to inspire and offer insight into the rewarding experiences available at AWS. Below are some frequently asked questions regarding AWS’s structured support programs.
1. How do SAs keep up with new technologies without burning out?
This is a common concern. Key strategies include:
Strategic use of work hours: AWS provides extensive learning resources, including AWS Skill Builder, AWS Training Live on Twitch, and Amazon Machine Learning University (MLU). The approach is to integrate learning into the workday rather than adding it on top.
Leveraging Purpose Day: AWS India offers a monthly “Purpose Day” specifically for professional development, which is not just encouraged but expected.
2. How do SAs develop expertise across many different technologies?
The TFC approach: The Technical Field Community (TFC) serves as a network of domain experts. It emphasizes knowing who possesses specific expertise rather than requiring individual SAs to know everything.
Combining broad and deep knowledge: SAs develop broad knowledge across AWS services while also cultivating specialty areas for deep expertise. Connecting with others who complement one’s expertise is also crucial.
3. How do SAs build confidence and overcome imposter syndrome?
This challenge resonates with many. Effective strategies include:
Guidance from Amazon leadership principles: These principles are practical frameworks for decision-making and growth.
, and
have proven particularly impactful.
Certification as a confidence builder: Passing certification exams provides powerful external validation of knowledge. Starting with AWS Training and Certification is recommended.
Taking ownership: Rather than waiting for perfect opportunities, SAs are encouraged to create them by volunteering for challenging projects, writing blog posts, or giving presentations.
Conclusion
Key takeaways from these stories include:
- Individual backgrounds are strengths: Kayalvizhi’s customer focus, Smita’s global perspective, and Archana’s progression from support to expertise each contributed unique elements leading to innovative solutions.
- Support systems are crucial: Inclusive policies and programs at AWS provide a foundation for demonstrating technical excellence and leadership potential.
- Balance is individualized: There is no universal approach to work-life balance. Finding what works, setting boundaries, and maintaining them is essential.
- Community enhances individual success: Being part of communities like TFC, Women in SA, or SheBuilds, which foster knowledge sharing and growth, makes the professional journey more achievable and enjoyable.
The cloud industry benefits from diverse perspectives, questions, problem-solving approaches, and unique insights into challenges. Every expert began as a beginner, every leader was once a follower, and every innovation originated from someone asking, “What if we tried it differently?”
To learn more about careers at AWS or connect with its communities, visit the careers page, explore diversity at AWS, and the AWS Architecture Center. Connections can also be made on LinkedIn.
