Amy Therrien

I am an executive engineering leader with over a decade of experience in AI and cloud engineering, specializing in high-scale distributed systems. I have held executive leadership roles at Amazon Web Services (AWS), managing technical organizations of more than 100 engineers (software engineers, data engineers, applied scientists, and application).  My experience includes transforming engineering cultures and leading strategic initiatives. In her current role as a Director of Software Engineering for AWS Finance, she leads a global team in modernizing financial processes using Agentic AI and cloud-native architectures. Previously, she spent over a decade building flagship AWS services like Amazon S3.  She has also driven significant cost-saving initiatives and developed next-generation engineering talent.

As an executive engineering leader, my career at Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been defined by transformative leadership in AI and cloud engineering.

From 2012 to 2024, I served as an Engineering Leader and then a Director of Software Development, building flagship AWS services. For nine of those years, I worked directly with Amazon S3 storage and streaming, leading teams of over 100 people. During this time, I delivered high-performance, open-source storage connectors for Amazon S3 used in machine learning and AI. I also oversaw the creation of Amazon S3 Object Lambda, a modern serverless solution for run-time object data transformation. I focused on driving massive cost-saving initiatives by innovating on both hardware and software across hundreds of thousands of servers. I also took pride in mentoring senior talent and developing the next generation of engineering leaders within AWS6.

In 2024, I took my current role as the Director of Software Engineering for AWS Finance. I now lead a global team in modernizing accounting and financial processes using Agentic AI and cloud-native architectures. A central part of my work has been transforming the engineering culture from a slow, waterfall-based approach to an agile one focused on AI-powered data-lake solutions and automated testing. I've also successfully advocated for using AI to break through barriers, reverse-engineer legacy systems, and improve quality.

Bachelors of Science in Computer Science with minor in Communications