Amazon Web Services (AWS)

As a Startup Solutions Architect, I focus on early stage through Accelerator and Incubator firms to later stage VC funded Startups, working directly with Accelerators/Incubator/VC partners and customers in their portfolio to drive the technology behind their key business outcomes. I ensure my Startup customers can continue to successfully grow and scale by guiding them in AWS best practices, becoming a trusted technical advisor, advocating for my customer’s needs internally and through thought leadership in the industry via content creation and presentation delivery. I own the technical engagement and continuously develop and maintain deep expertise in AWS technologies as well as broad know-how around how applications and services are best architected using the AWS platform to facilitate customer success.

Startup Sr Solutions Architect

As an Enterprise Solutions Architect, I partner with customers to design highly available, elastic and fault tolerant Cloud architectures that solve business problems through the adoption of AWS services. As a trusted customer advocate, I help organizations understand best practices around advanced Cloud based solutions, how to migrate existing workloads to the Cloud, and position customers to successfully achieve their missions with AWS services by thinking strategically about business, products, and technical challenges. I help shape and execute winning strategies for customers that exhibit thought leadership and achieve desired outcomes through the application of AWS  services.

Enterprise Solutions Architect

Deloitte

As a Technology, Strategy, and Architecture Specialist Master I helped organizations develop the strategies and implement the systems that built business value and drove performance. From system replacement to full IT transformation, I brought deep knowledge and experience to the most complex IT challenges.

Specialist Master (Manager)

DISA

-Contractor at DISA-

•Gathered, analyzed, and defined architecture data and network and hardware requirements for systems supporting thousands of Air Force users, translating high-level directives into engineering solutions.
•Conducted technical planning, risk analysis, requirements verification, and validation for $1M+ systems.
•Evaluated IT service requirements, system infrastructure, and network architectures for 8 global data centers. 
•Created engineering designs using Visio diagrams, integrated diagrams with solution documents for customer review, and implemented designs.
•Provided network engineering guidance to Air Force, DISA IT Operations, system engineers, and other stakeholders to increase system stability and resilience. 
•Led technical engineering review meetings and tiger team events to capture critical insights to improve system capabilities and achieve missions.  
•Developed hosting solutions for dozens of high-profile, mission-critical cloud architecture projects supporting high visibility programs, primarily using the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) hosting model.
•Conducted three IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Foundation trainings that enabled 95% of students to pass ITIL certification exams.

Senior Communications Engineer

Lockheed Martin

•Designed and implemented a network attached storage (NAS) provisioning platform that doubled hosting capacity of DOJ litigation portal. 
•Created and administered Active Directory Domain supporting hundreds of DOJ personnel.
•Developed and executed technical strategy to increase network capacity, security, and compliance with DOJ policies.
•Managed migration and consolidation of 3 data centers into 2, realizing significant cost savings by using virtualization technologies to maintain computing capacity of newly consolidated data center.
•Resolved end-user incidents during work hours and after, usually resolving issues within minutes.

Senior System Administrator

Booz Allen Hamilton

•Provided timely responses for incidents, outages, and performance alerts to reduce down time and build stability of company’s enterprise network that served over 20K personnel.
•Collected, reviewed, and reported hardware and application performance trends to predict incidents and prevent outages.

Senior Consultant - Network Operation Center

Deltek

•Maintained integrity of network, server deployment, and security.
•Evaluated and modified system performance to meet changing business requirements.

Network Administrator

SAIC

•Evaluated software and hardware to meet user requirements and achieve customer objectives at reduced cost.
•Maintained and secured integrity of desktops, laptops, and local area network (LAN).

IT Service Desk Specialist

Over the last decade I've helped hundreds of companies build and scale on cloud.

But, in 2020, I felt something was missing.

I wanted to share everything I learned in my tech career with you.

So, I created ThoughtfulTechy Cloud.

My mission is to inspire millions of techies to follow their dreams through building a tech career.

I help technologists break into cloud, break free from IT support, and grow in an existing cloud role.

My results:

→ 72K+ people following on LinkedIn
→ 54K+ people following on TikTok
→ 15K+ people subscribed on YouTube
→ 12K+ people read my weekly newsletter
→ 19M+ Impressions (LinkedIn)

If you want to learn more about booking a 1:1:

→ GO HERE: https://topmate.io/thoughtfultechycloud/

If you want to learn more about ThoughtfulTechy Cloud join our community:

→ GO HERE: https://www.youtube.com/@ThoughtfulTechyCloud

Testimonials:

"I would like to thank you for the valuable insights you provide almost every day on your channel. It's really motivating!"

"I just watched one of your YouTube videos and it's what I was looking for. Your thoughts are amazing. l'd love to keep in touch with you and learn more."

"Great video Greg! Awesome way of breaking down the path into achievable goals. Thanks for the content."

Socials:

X: @ThoughtfulTechy
TikTok: @ThoughtfulTechy_Cloud
Instagram: @Thoughtfultechy_Cloud
YouTube: @ThoughtfulTechyCloud

Views are my own and do not reflect my employer

Many “AI engineers” did not start in AI.


They started where a lot of you are now:
🔸Running production systems
🔸Owning incidents and SLAs
🔸Making tradeoffs on cost, latency, and reliability

The difference is they learned how to:
🔸Plug foundation models into existing services
🔸Treat prompts, RAG and fine tuning like engineering tools
🔸Measure and iterate on AI features the same way they do APIs

If you already work in cloud, infra, DevOps or backend you are not starting from zero. You are one focused learning track away from “I play with AI” to “I ship AI powered features at work."

♻️ Share this with your network

Greg Powell

Creator, ThoughtfulTechy Cloud | Helping You Easily Navigate Your AWS Cloud & Tech Journey

Tech careers aren’t what they were just a few years ago. Cloud skills alone got me far. But I started seeing how quickly AI is changing the rules for promotions, pay, and long-term job security.

Here’s what’s changing in 2026:
🔸 Cloud admins are being asked to design AI-driven workflows not just manage compute.
🔸 The hottest jobs are Cloud and AI architects, not pure Cloud.
🔸 Progress belongs to those willing to learn, experiment, and document their journey, no matter where they start.

In the last few months I’ve layered AI into my daily life and work. It's opened more doors, led to new projects, and sparked conversations that certifications alone never did.

If you’re in IT, cloud, or support, I encourage you to look at one project, workflow, or challenge through an AI lens this week. Waiting for the org chart to change isn’t a strategy.

What’s the number one Cloud + AI question on your mind right now?

♻️ Share it below so we can learn and grow together.

The most underrated tech skill in 2026 isn’t a framework. It's adaptability.


Stacks, tools, even job titles are shifting faster than ever. AI, Cloud, and Career patterns. None of this is slowing down. The people who thrive are not the ones who bet everything on a single tool. 

They are the ones who can:
🔸 Learn new tools without panicking
🔸 Let go of old bets when the market shifts
🔸 Rebuild their roadmap every 6-12 months based on where the industry is headed

Tech doesn’t reward what you know. 

It rewards how fast you can outgrow what you know.

♻️ Share this with your network

It's time to kick it up a notch 🌡️🔥


I'm placing BIG bets on myself.

Do the same for yourself.

📌Join 20K Navigating Their AWS Cloud & Tech Journey:
https://lnkd.in/gVKek9iG

There's a tremendous amount of noise out there.


Focus.

That's what you need.

Get quiet.

The answer you're looking for is already within you.

♻️ Share this with your network

I'm not done yet.


BIG changes to ThoughtfulTechy Cloud studio setup. One of the biggest drivers to this new setup might not be obvious.

Health.

Over the years I've spent a huge amount of time sitting at a workstation. I literally spend more time at a workstation than in the bed or on a couch 😄

Whether in my studio or in the office. I didn't realize it but it had taken a toll on my lower back. So one of my new non-negotiables in my new setup was it had to be a standing desk.

Absolute game changer. 

Aside from that my setup really had to lower the friction between me wanting to create and my ability to quickly create. My setup had to be ready to go!

No setup the tripod, find a key light, fiddling with where to mount the camera. It's all there. Ready.

I have some more gear in the boxes I'm setting up over the weekend and I have another package arriving today.

I've been creating content for 5 years now (Oct 2020). I really love to create! But what I love even more is sharing with you!

Take a guess on what may be in the boxes and what shipment is arriving today.

📌Join 20K Navigating Their AWS Cloud & Tech Journey:
https://lnkd.in/gVKek9iG

If you're trying to upskill in AI right now you're not alone.


A lot of people are figuring out where to start, what projects to build, and which resources actually help.

The best advice I can give is start small and build something real.

Pick a problem you understand or a task you'd like to automate. Maybe it's analyzing text, making predictions from data, or experimenting with a pre-trained model.

The project doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to teach you something.

Learning AI isn't about reading everything before you feel ready.

It's about trying, breaking things, fixing them, and repeating. The hands-on work shows you what you need to know next.

If you're stuck on where to begin or what direction to take that's normal. Most people feel that way at first.

The key is picking one clear step and moving forward.

What's one thing you're learning or building in AI right now?

Or if you're just getting started, what's holding you back?

Let's talk about it in the comments.

♻️ Share this with your network

If something feels annoying every time you do it that’s your best clue you should automate it.

Doing a task by hand, step by step, is the fastest way to spot what actually slows you down. Each manual click, every repeated mistake, and all the little frustrations start to stand out when you tackle a process more than once.

When you take the time to experience that pain yourself you understand exactly what needs fixing. This makes your future automation smarter because you’re targeting real problems, not guessing what should you automate.

After you notice where the bottlenecks are you can build an automation that fits your workflow and actually makes your work easier and your team.

What’s one task that taught you the most after doing it several times manually? How did you know it was time to automate?

♻️ Share your experience in the comments.

Are you up for the Learn 1 teach 1 challenge?


You have 1 day to learn 1 new concept and teach what you learned to 1 person.

Let's GO!!!

♻️ Share this with your network

The Cloud Jobs That Will Survive (and Thrive) in the AI Era


If you're in IT, support, or cloud engineering right now, you've probably asked yourself: "Am I learning the right skills to stay relevant, or am I about to get left behind?"

Here's what I'm seeing after nearly a decade as an AWS Solutions Architect:

The roles at risk:
❌ Pure "button-clickers" who just follow runbooks
❌ Cloud syadmins who can't architect or automate
❌ Anyone who stops learning after their last cert

The roles exploding:
✅ Cloud architects who integrate AI into real solutions
✅ Engineers who automate workflows and build intelligent systems
✅ Tech pros who can translate business problems into Cloud + AI answers

The difference?

It's not about having every certification or knowing every tool. It's about showing you can build, adapt, and solve real problems with the tech that matters now.

If you're stuck in support, sysadmin work, or feel like your cloud skills have plateaued:

This is your moment to pivot. Not panic.

Start with one hands-on project that demonstrates Cloud + AI integration.
Document it. Share it. Use it in interviews.

That's how you prove you're future-ready, not just certified.

What's one project or skill you're building right now to future-proof your career?

♻️ Share this with your network

The sooner you ask for help the sooner you’ll learn and get unstuck.


Drop a question whenever something’s confusing. I’m here and your tech friends are too. Someone on here can help.

♻️ Share this with your network

Simple framework to learn ANY technical skill


📌Join 20K Navigating Their AWS Cloud & Tech Journey:
https://lnkd.in/gVKek9iG

♻️ Share this with your network

Most builders who run real systems underestimate how powerful one AI powered workflow can be for their career.

Not a new title.  

Not another certification.

One concrete change in a system you already run that you can point to and say:  

“That change moved the needle”

♻️ Share this with your network

Why Feeling Dumb Means You’re Learning


📌Join 20K Navigating Their AWS Cloud & Tech Journey:
https://lnkd.in/gVKek9iG

♻️ Share this with your network

NVIDIA’s New AI Infra Cert You Should Know About


📌Join 20K Navigating Their AWS Cloud & Tech Journey:
https://lnkd.in/gVKek9iG

♻️ Share this with your network

Stop Chasing Certs: Read This If You Want to Be a Solutions Architect


♻️ Share this with your network

In a world where tech stacks and roles keep shifting


How quickly you update your skills is what matters.

♻️ Share this with your network

Late night in my studio testing out gear.


Just like old times when I first got started.

🎸 ThoughtfulTechy

In LA today to meet one of my amazing HCLS customers for coffee ☕️


Meeting with customers is one of my FAVORITE aspects of the Solutions Architect role!

Have a great day 🙌

Here’s what going for a run with my bride Leila taught me about building a Serverless B2B Agentic AI RAG Chatbot

NOTHING! 😂

Happy Thanksgiving 🦃

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