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Most of EC2 and S3 product development happened in South Africa. The original technical lead for AWS was South African, and was about to move back from Seattle

Most of EC2 and S3 product development happened in South Africa. The original technical lead for AWS was South African, and was about to move back from Seattle after the original AWS pitch meeting. Bezos liked the idea so much that he let him develop the product in South Africa.

mikorym 8y ago
Did not know this—even though I knew Cape Town had a AWS team.
donretag 8y ago
Since then, most of AWS transitioned back to Seattle and the CT team focuses on some of the tooling around AWS. I interviewed with Amazon in CT and I regret not accepting the job offer. Seems like that office will really be picking up.
- ti_ranger 8y ago
  > Since then, most of AWS transitioned back to Seattle and the CT team focuses on some of the tooling around AWS. This is not true. Most of AWS was never in Cape Town, only most of EC2. And lots of EC2 development still occurs in Cape Town. EC2 has just grown immensely, so even though EC2 developers in Cape Town are now at least 25 times more than at launch, there are teams working on EC2-specific stuff in a number of locations (but yes, many in Seattle). However, all customer EC2 API calls (e.g. the AWS cli's 'aws ec2 run-instances' etc.) are handled by software that is currently developed and maintained by the Cape Town office, and I believe the EC2 parts of the AWS console are also mostly developed in Cape Town. There are however teams besides EC2 that have developers in Cape Town (e.g. I think the Personal Health Dashboard, which is not EC2-specific, is also developed in Cape Town). Cape Town also has a large team of support engineers in Premium Support, and handles all Premium Support calls for about 6 hours a day (IIRC).
  - nostrebored 8y ago
    Accurate. A large portion of internal tooling is developed in Cape Town as well.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    > Cape Town also has a large team of support engineers in Premium Support, and handles all Premium Support calls for about 6 hours a day (IIRC). Legacy of the empire--there's almost always an English-speaking population in normal business hours.
- bbgm 8y ago
  This video talks a little bit about the EC2 team in Cape Town (a team that I’ve always enjoyed working with). It was made at the 10 yr anniversary of EC2. https://youtu.be/9Gk_I_0eMDA https://youtu.be/9Gk_I_0eMDA
influx 8y ago
This is true for EC2, but not at all for S3, which has always been developed in Seattle.

mikorym 8y ago

Did not know this—even though I knew Cape Town had a AWS team.

donretag 8y ago

Since then, most of AWS transitioned back to Seattle and the CT team focuses on some of the tooling around AWS. I interviewed with Amazon in CT and I regret not accepting the job offer. Seems like that office will really be picking up.

ti_ranger 8y ago
> Since then, most of AWS transitioned back to Seattle and the CT team focuses on some of the tooling around AWS. This is not true. Most of AWS was never in Cape Town, only most of EC2. And lots of EC2 development still occurs in Cape Town. EC2 has just grown immensely, so even though EC2 developers in Cape Town are now at least 25 times more than at launch, there are teams working on EC2-specific stuff in a number of locations (but yes, many in Seattle). However, all customer EC2 API calls (e.g. the AWS cli's 'aws ec2 run-instances' etc.) are handled by software that is currently developed and maintained by the Cape Town office, and I believe the EC2 parts of the AWS console are also mostly developed in Cape Town. There are however teams besides EC2 that have developers in Cape Town (e.g. I think the Personal Health Dashboard, which is not EC2-specific, is also developed in Cape Town). Cape Town also has a large team of support engineers in Premium Support, and handles all Premium Support calls for about 6 hours a day (IIRC).
- nostrebored 8y ago
  Accurate. A large portion of internal tooling is developed in Cape Town as well.
- philwelch 8y ago
  > Cape Town also has a large team of support engineers in Premium Support, and handles all Premium Support calls for about 6 hours a day (IIRC). Legacy of the empire--there's almost always an English-speaking population in normal business hours.
bbgm 8y ago
This video talks a little bit about the EC2 team in Cape Town (a team that I’ve always enjoyed working with). It was made at the 10 yr anniversary of EC2. https://youtu.be/9Gk_I_0eMDA https://youtu.be/9Gk_I_0eMDA

influx 8y ago

This is true for EC2, but not at all for S3, which has always been developed in Seattle.