AWS Golden Jacket
The best architectures begin with an honest question.
Solutions Architect · AWS
I am Andrés Aguilar, a Solutions Architect at AWS and an AWS Golden Jacket. This is where I write about technology, architecture, and the ideas that emerge when we try to build systems that matter.
Principles
These are not universal answers. They are ideas I use to think more clearly before choosing a technology.
Design from purpose
A useful architecture begins by understanding whom it serves, what problem it changes, and which decision it must enable.
- Technology follows intent
- Trade-offs are made visible
- Clarity is part of the design
Evolve incrementally
Enduring systems are rarely born complete. They learn, adapt, and improve without turning every change into an all-or-nothing bet.
- Small changes with fast learning
- Reversible decisions where possible
- Progress before perfection
Operate responsibly
Building also means caring for what happens next: security, resilience, observability, and operations people can understand.
- Design for difficult days
- Make what matters observable
- Treat operations as part of the product
Efficiency as a creative constraint
Cost, complexity, and energy are not final details. They are boundaries that can lead to simpler and better solutions.
- Use only what creates value
- Remove accidental complexity
- Optimize without losing purpose
Areas I explore
Technologies and disciplines that shape my work and the questions I develop on this site.
Compute and containers
- EC2
- Lambda
- ECS
- EKS
- Fargate
- App Runner
Data
- RDS
- Aurora
- DynamoDB
- S3
- Redshift
- Kinesis
Integration
- API Gateway
- EventBridge
- SQS
- SNS
- Step Functions
Networking and security
- VPC
- Transit Gateway
- IAM
- CloudFront
- WAF
- KMS
Platform
- CDK
- Terraform
- CloudFormation
- Organizations
- Control Tower
Observability
- CloudWatch
- X-Ray
- OpenTelemetry
From rural roots to AWS
A story that begins across Coro, Yapamatico, and Punto Fijo, and moves forward through programming.
My family's roots are in two small towns in Falcón, Venezuela. On my mother's side, my family comes from Coro. On my father's side, it comes from Yapamatico, a place little known to others and one that only the family knows how to reach.
I come from Punto Fijo, an oil city in Venezuela. My first computer was a 286, and at the city's oil-industry schools I learned to program in LOGO.
Because of economic circumstances, I began programming and repairing computers at 13.
At 17, I moved to Mérida, Venezuela, to study Systems Engineering. While studying, I paid for my education by programming.
That journey—from my family's roots in Falcón, through a 286, LOGO, and the programming work that paid for my education—eventually brought me to AWS, where I now work as a Solutions Architect.
What I write
I write to organize ideas, share what I learn, and leave better questions about architecture, cloud, and technology.
Continue the conversation
Good ideas improve when they are shared. Send me an email, or find me on LinkedIn and GitHub.