Sam Williams

I've pre-ordered something shiny

Who knows what it is? - wrong answers only

#BuyYourselfSomethingPretty

What else should you do to become a solution architect?

#aws #serverless #solutionarchitect

If you really want to get a solution architect job:

- Read solution architecture blogs - more exposure to patterns is good.

- Ask why the seniors in your team make the decisions they do.

- Design solutions for existing apps, then discuss it with others (feedback is vital)

But this is easy to spot in an interview:

- ask something not covered by the certs that you would know if you used services

- get them to explain why (certs train you to pick from options, not explain why)

- just let them talk about architecture and they'll say things that just don't make sense

AWS Solution Architect Pro means 💩

You need the skills to back it up.


AWS often sells the dream of "get certified and you'll be ready to be a solution architect"

People then rote learn the answers and slap it on their CV.

But this fails at interview 👇 🧵

Plus, you can now use the most performant code.

- most people who read the code just need to know that you are calculating the equipment maintenance schedule

- if they need to update that specific code, they have the time to understand a reduce function, or other performance optimised code.

- database queries with all of their error handling becomes:
"getOrdersForCustomer({ customerId, dateRange })"

- complex business logic becomes:
"calculateEquipmentMaintenanceSchedule({ equipmentId, maintenanceHistory, testResults })"

That truly makes your code more readable.

In this exact example, this is overkill. Your engineers should know how a reduce function works.

But when you have 100 lines of code, can you group 30 of them and put them in a named function?

Great code is both easy to understand and performant

I saw a post suggesting you should never use a reduce function - it's too complicated to understand

- if your engineers can't understand a reduce function, why did you hire them?
- if you want to make your code more readable, use name functions.

They spend 2 days optimising the code and reduce the cost 50%
( P.S. 50% optimisation is pretty impressive )

It cost you $800 to save $50/month
That means it takes over a year to make a saving

If your Lambda costs less than $100/month - don't even consider optimising it.

#aws #serverless

Yesterday I told you how to avoid Serverless costs

But there is one thing that most people forget


Developers are EXPENSIVE $$$

Lets say you pay a developer $50/hr

You have a single Lambda that costs $100/month

5. The Recursive Cost Bomb
One function spawning endless others?
That's how a $10 bill becomes $10,000
Implement:
- Circuit breakers
- Concurrency limits
- Clear exit conditions

Found this useful?
Follow for more cloud cost optimization tips that actually work 👇

#aws #serverless #costs

4. Flying Blind Without Monitoring
No monitoring = No optimization
Track:
- Cost per Lambda
- Execution patterns
- Resource usage
Remember: Now you know which Lambdas are worth optimising

3. Slow Dependencies Are Silent Killers
Your Lambda is like a taxi meter - it keeps running while waiting
- High RAM = High cost per second
- Long waits = Multiplied costs
Fixes:
- Optimize those downstream calls first
- Use less RAM for Lambdas that spend most of their time waiting

2. Real-Time vs Batch Processing
Fun fact: Not everything needs real-time processing
- Real-time = $$$
- Batch = $
Fix: Does processing this record 30s later matter? If not - batch process these records.

Serverless can cause your AWS costs to explode

5 top causes and how to fix them


1. Memory Mismatches = Money Down the Drain
- Over-provisioning RAM? You're burning cash
- Under-provisioning? Less CPU power = slow execution = higher costs
- Fix: Monitor + right-size your Lambdas

I've been quiet on here for the last month.

The new job has been intense.

What I'm going to be talking about over the next few months:

- Amazon Connect
- Bedrock / Amazon Q
- startup culture, how we're building our team, the wins and losses.

And of course how Serverless fits into all of this!

I don't know if I could ever go back from a split keyboard.

2025 is going to be very different to how I'd expected it to but I think that it will be an awesome year.

#aws #2024review

- 4 new yt videos and 2 live streams
- 154k total views on my videos. Most from videos over 2 years old.
- lost my other client in Nov, posted about it and had loads of new opportunities.
- took a job at a startup that is going to change the customer service industry.

- fired my biggest client at the start of the year as they were trying to screw me over.
- spent 6 weeks working from the van in Italy.
- talked at 4 conferences ( community day Istanbul, community day NL, Reinvent BIS, serverless days Rome)

My 2024 review.

Lot of ups and downs but here's the key things.

Maybe next year I'll think ahead and sign up with a different email address

Had an awesome day at the ServerlessDays Rome.

Great talks, interesting discussions and some new friends made

#serverless #serverlessdays #rome

I think AWS could get more value for money by investing in video content.

We'll see if they invest and promote content in 2025

#aws #content #code

AWS is sometimes behind the times.

Content is one of those areas.

My YouTube channel has had over 4000 unique users watch a video in the last 28 days.

Yet AWS prefer to pump money into meetups and user groups.
Those things are great and super valuable, but they get 30-50 people max per month.

I'm starting to plan my 2025, are there any conferences in Europe that you're looking forward to?

I'm looking for suggestions for conferences to apply to and talk about AWS and serverless.

Let me know which conferences you are going to in 2025

#aws #serverless

Super excited for this again this year. Last year was so good 🔥

It was great meeting up with Brian and chatting about what he's up to

ReMeet - Unofficial re:Invent Meetup The best way to find people to connect with at re:invent and grow your network

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