Return of The Frugal Architect(s)
In my twenty years at Amazon, I’ve spoken with thousands of customers across industries and roles. Their challenges are unique, but a common thread emerges time and again: the desire to reduce cloud costs while maintaining performance and driving continuous innovation.
Last year during my re:Invent keynote, I introduced The Frugal Architect, a set of seven simple laws for building cost-aware, sustainable, and modern architectures. The response was overwhelming. Builders connected deeply with the idea that constraints—whether physical or self-imposed—can drive creativity. They force us to understand our systems intimately, to challenge past decisions, and uncover the small efficiencies that add up to significant savings.
Today, I’m relaunching The Frugal Architect with expanded content: sharing the stories of AWS customers who are innovating to optimize their architectures for cost and sustainability.
Moving forward, you’ll find long-form articles from a variety of well-respected architects, as well as a new podcast series, which I’m co-hosting with Simon Elisha, a long-time Amazonian and trusted voice in the AWS community.
The first blog post and podcast episode are available today, featuring Dan Conti, former CTO of WeTransfer. Dan shares how his team revisited past decisions to reduce digital waste. And by enhancing observability and questioning legacy choices, they uncovered and addressed inefficiencies—such as unused storage and over-provisioned compute resources—that led to significant cost savings and a reduced carbon footprint. Dan reminds us that the journey to cost-efficiency takes time — and that there is a lot of value in an incremental approach.
Next week, The Frugal Architect will feature Mike Norton, VP of Cloud Technologies at PBS. Mike explains how he shifted PBS’s tech operations from constant firefighting to proactive fireproofing. As a publicly funded organization, PBS needed to make every dollar count, so Mike’s team re-architected their systems to balance resilience and cost-effectiveness. By moving to containerized and serverless architectures, they dramatically reduced compute costs while doubling streaming traffic, all without compromising their mission to educate and entertain viewers like you.
We’ll pick back up in the new year with even more stories from innovative architects who are building smarter, more efficient systems in the cloud. I invite you to explore the updated site, dive into these stories, and get inspired by the creative ways builders are maximizing value and minimizing waste.
As always, Now Go Build!