2025 has been an intense, fulfilling, and transformative year for me — as an Engineering Manager, public speaker, and AWS Community Builder, filled with conferences, community contributions, flights, new experiences, and meaningful connections.
It has also been a year of growth: as a leader, as a communicator, and as part of a global technical community that energises me every day.
Below is my look back at the journey.
Kicking Off the Year in Milan - AWS Community Day Italy
The conference season started on 2 April 2025, when I flew to my original hometown, Milan, to speak for the second time at AWS Community Day Italy.
There, I presented: “Road to Compliance: Will Your Internal Users Hate Your Platform Team?” a talk where I shared the journey of my team at sevdesk: how we implemented internal governance, operational guardrails, and FinOps in a way that didn’t create frustration or friction with engineering teams.
Enforcing rules consistently while still supporting autonomy is a delicate balance. The challenge is never purely technical - empathy, communication, and a customer-centric mindset play an essential role.
We covered how services like AWS Security Hub, AWS Config, SCPs, and Tagging Policies help automate compliance and reduce risk, while preserving trust and collaboration inside the company.
AWS Summit Hamburg - Something Different
On 5 June, I supported the selection of speakers for the Community Stage at AWS Summit Hamburg.
My own talk didn’t make it this year - which honestly happens to all of us - so I embraced a new challenge instead.
I worked at the AWS Community Builders booth, talking to attendees about the program, sharing my experience, and explaining why it’s such a powerful career accelerator. (by the way - applications for 2026 will open soon - check here for a great guide about how-to)
And then I stepped onto a different stage entirely:
for the first time, I put on the mic and headphones to introduce another speaker and moderate the Q&A.
It felt awkward not hearing myself or the audience, but incredibly fun and rewarding.
AWS Community Day Poland and AWS community Day Netherlands
On 18 September in Warsaw, at AWS Community Day Poland, I presented (with Tiago Bilou) Serverless vs Kubernetes — The Final Showdown:
A lively, no-holds-barred debate about two polarising cloud approaches.
We talked about complexity, scalability, costs, security, legacy modernization, and event-driven architectures.
The room, set in a cinema, was packed, around 350 people, despite other big-name speakers presenting at the same time.
I wrote a post about the talk and why such a debate was a great learning experience.
A few days later, on 24 September, I brought the same talk (this time with Damiano Giorgi) to AWS Community Day NL in Utrecht - again in a cinema, again in front of a huge, energetic audience.
Come to Code - A Conference Like No Other
From Utrecht, I flew straight to Basilicata in Italy for Come to Code, where I gave my “Road to Compliance: Will Your Internal Users Hate Your Platform Team?” talk again.
But the event itself deserves a special mention.
This conference was magical.
Maybe because it lasted two and a half days, giving us time to truly connect. Maybe because of the shared lunches, the drawing and crochet workshops 🧶, the walk in the woods, the retro gaming corner (including ChatGPT on a Commodore 64!), or the live concerts in the town square.
Maybe because speaking in my native language hit differently.
Everything was perfect - pizza nights, a Bavarian dinner, the “Cloud Taboo” game, the AWS Builder Cards, Lucanian food and drinks, music, laughs, deep conversations with other Engineering Managers, and the huge passion of 180 people who travelled to a small southern Italian mountain town on a weekend.
The organisers deserve infinite applause for the logistics, the hospitality, and the heart they put into every detail.
AWS Community Day DACH - Behind the Scenes
On 7 October, I sadly could not attend AWS Community Day DACH - too many conferences this year and packed into a few weeks.
However, as part of the AWS Community DACH Association Booster Club I again joined the selection committee for talks.
My own submission wasn’t selected this time, but the process is always inspiring, fair, and full of incredibly well-crafted abstracts.
InfoQ Dev Summit Munich - Beyond AWS
On 16 October, I presented again my “Road to Compliance: Will Your Internal Users Hate Your Platform Team?” talk at InfoQ Dev Summit Munich, a highly professional, multi-platform conference — not just AWS-centric.
A highlight was moderating the “Birds of a Feather” discussion/panel on Platform Engineering, which was a brand-new experience for me.
On the train back to Hamburg, I wrote a blog post summarising my impressions and the talks I attended.
Closing the Conference Year at DevFest Hamburg
My last event of the year was 14 November, back home in Hamburg.
With Tiago Bilou, I delivered “Serverless vs Kubernetes — The Final Showdown” at DevFest Hamburg—on the Container Stage, in front of an audience mostly focused on Google Cloud.
It truly felt like an away game.
But architecture principles are cloud-agnostic, and we were welcomed with great curiosity and engagement.
The engineering community is inclusive everywhere — no matter the cloud provider.
A Feature on The Serverless Advocate
I was also featured in the Serverless Advocate Newsletter by Lee Gilmore, in the “Ask the Expert” section, where I shared experience, tips, and practical advice for engineers working with serverless.
Writing Less, But Writing Deeper
This year I didn’t publish as many technical articles - partly because the Engineering Manager role limits deep hands-on exploration, and partly because the conference season was incredibly busy.
But I did write pieces I’m proud of:
- A follow-up to an old post about being a Multiplier—one of the reasons I became an EM and Community Builder.🌊 Be the Rising Tide: The Multiplying Effect of Lifting (and Pushing) Others
- A reflection on imposter syndrome, vulnerability, and personal growth, inspired by moments where I cried at work—and why that’s not weakness, but honesty and humanity. Discomfort isn’t the enemy: Lessons from 3 times I cried at work
Internal Impact - Building Communities at Work
Not directly part of AWS Community Builders, but still related to sharing knowledge:
- I gave a talk on Observability and Incident Management at our company onsite in March: “From DevOoops to SRE.”
- I launched internal Guilds and Tech Communities.
- With support from the AWS Enterprise RAMP-UP program, I organised workshops for our engineers on Amazon Q, SQS & EventBridge, and Microfrontends, delivered by AWS experts.
These were some of the contributions I’m most proud of.
My Speaking Goals for 2025 — and The Reality
I started the year with two goals:
- Speak at 6 conferences.
- Speak at least once outside AWS-focused events, ideally on leadership topics.
I achieved the first goal — though only barely.
Until August, I thought I’d miss it.
Then September and October arrived with 4 conferences in 30 days.
I sincerely hope conference organisers coordinate better in the future — autumn is becoming impossibly crowded!
I had to decline 4 accepted CFPs and withdraw from 5 evaluations because of scheduling conflicts.
Just as a reminder for anyone struggling with CFPs: I was rejected by 15 events this year.
Keep refining your abstracts. Make them personal, relevant, and clear. Rejection is part of the process.
My second goal — speaking about leadership — didn’t happen.
My talk on DORA Metrics and high-performing teams didn’t get accepted this year.
But I’ll keep improving it and try again in 2026.
Looking Back - And Ahead
2025 was exhausting, energising, emotional, and unforgettable.
It reminded me why I love being part of the AWS Community and the broader engineering world:
- Sharing knowledge makes us all better.
- Speaking publicly creates connections that last.
- Helping others grow amplifies our own growth.
- And community - real community - happens when people bring passion, vulnerability, curiosity, and kindness.
Here’s to another year of learning, building, speaking, and lifting others. And to the AWS Community Builders program, which continues to be an incredible catalyst for personal and professional growth.
See you in 2026.
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