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AWS re:Invent is rad. The sheer size of vendors and attendees is staggering. They keynotes are polished and generally reveal exciting things. The tech talks ar

AWS re:Invent is rad. The sheer size of vendors and attendees is staggering. They keynotes are polished and generally reveal exciting things. The tech talks are numerous and sorted into 100, 200, 300 and 400 tracks based on how technical they are. If you're building stuff on or for AWS you won't go home without learning something new.

eropple 11y ago
Yeah, this is the one I came here to post. re:Invent is a fantastic technical resource that's largely available after the fact, but (I am told, I'm going for the first time this year) the in-person stuff and the networking opportunities seem to be the biggest reason to go.
- curun1r 11y ago
  re:Invent is fun, but I find the sessions to be basically useless. Most of them are very superficial and don't give you much that you couldn't glean from a half hour looking a documentation. The most valuable thing is the conversations you have with other attendees and, in particular, Amazon engineers. Make sure you come with a list of specific questions you want answered. One thing I've learned from my first 2 re:Invents...skip the provided breakfasts and lunches. They're terrible and I've gotten sick from them in both of the years that I've attended. The other options at the Venetian/Palazzo are well worth the extra cost.
jasonlotito 11y ago
Gonna disagree. AWS needs to learn to scale it's conference. It was literally dangerous, going up the escalators this year. And if you weren't there early, they'd run out of room. It was constantly cramped, and frankly, just a horrible experience. The only reason to attend would be to speak with vendors. And if you want to do that, you can arrange that without spending a dime on re:Invent. Considering the cost of attending, and the fact that you can see all the talks afterwards for free anyways, it's not worth the price. Even speaking with AWS experts was less than useful, as the individuals knew only the basics. Asking anything specific didn't get you any useful information. Couple this was what amounts to an awful schedule on a website... AWS re:Invent should be something everyone attends once, just so they know how not to organize or run a conference.

eropple 11y ago

Yeah, this is the one I came here to post. re:Invent is a fantastic technical resource that's largely available after the fact, but (I am told, I'm going for the first time this year) the in-person stuff and the networking opportunities seem to be the biggest reason to go.

curun1r 11y ago
re:Invent is fun, but I find the sessions to be basically useless. Most of them are very superficial and don't give you much that you couldn't glean from a half hour looking a documentation. The most valuable thing is the conversations you have with other attendees and, in particular, Amazon engineers. Make sure you come with a list of specific questions you want answered. One thing I've learned from my first 2 re:Invents...skip the provided breakfasts and lunches. They're terrible and I've gotten sick from them in both of the years that I've attended. The other options at the Venetian/Palazzo are well worth the extra cost.

jasonlotito 11y ago

Gonna disagree. AWS needs to learn to scale it's conference. It was literally dangerous, going up the escalators this year. And if you weren't there early, they'd run out of room. It was constantly cramped, and frankly, just a horrible experience. The only reason to attend would be to speak with vendors. And if you want to do that, you can arrange that without spending a dime on re:Invent. Considering the cost of attending, and the fact that you can see all the talks afterwards for free anyways, it's not worth the price. Even speaking with AWS experts was less than useful, as the individuals knew only the basics. Asking anything specific didn't get you any useful information. Couple this was what amounts to an awful schedule on a website... AWS re:Invent should be something everyone attends once, just so they know how not to organize or run a conference.