The Houston Amazon Web Services (AWS) Group

In January we formed a team of volunteers from our membership called the Houston AWS Product Team and now we are ready to show you what we've got cooking. Building on AWS in 2026 means making dozens of interrelated decisions — about architecture, tooling, cost, deployment, and ML integration — often before you have a clear playbook. This month, a local development team pulls back the curtain on a full-stack AWS application they've been building in production.
This is a practitioner-led session. The people presenting are the people who wrote the code, made the architecture calls, and watched the AWS bill at the end of the month.

AGENDA
1. THE PRODUCT
We start with the user experience — what the application does and who it serves. Understanding the product sets the context for every technical decision that follows.
2. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
A stateless AWS architecture spanning Amplify, API Gateway, SQS, AWS Batch, and a React/Vite frontend. We'll walk through the architecture diagram layer by layer, explain why stateless design was chosen, and discuss the operational tradeoffs.
3. INFRASTRUCTURE AS CODE
How the entire environment is defined, versioned, and deployed as code. We'll cover our IaC approach and how AWS Amplify integrates into the full deployment story — including the rough edges.
4. ML MODEL INTEGRATION
The application uses a machine learning model for data categorization. We'll explain the model, how it's deployed on AWS, how it integrates with the rest of the stack, and the practical decisions around accuracy, latency, and cost.
5. LIVE CD PIPELINE DEMO
A live walkthrough of our continuous delivery pipeline — from a code commit through build, test, and deployment to a live Amplify environment. We'll cover the pipeline design and field questions on testing strategy and deployment guardrails.
6. FINOPS BREAKDOWN
A frank conversation about cloud costs. We'll share a service-by-service cost breakdown, explain which architectural decisions had the largest cost impact, and discuss strategies for keeping AWS spend manageable during active development.
7. LESSONS LEARNED + OPEN Q&A
What worked, what didn't, and what we'd do differently. We'll open the floor for questions, feedback, and discussion. If you've approached similar problems differently, we want to hear it.

TECHNOLOGIES DISCUSSED
AWS Amplify · API Gateway · SQS · AWS Batch · S3
· Vite · Infrastructure as Code · CI/CD
Machine Learning (text categorization) · FinOps · Graviton

IDEAL ATTENDEES
This session is most relevant for solutions architects, full-stack developers, DevOps and platform engineers, QA architects exploring ML integration, and anyone responsible for AWS cost management. Intermediate AWS familiarity is helpful but not required.

Online event. Free to attend. RSVP to receive the meeting link. The first 15-20 minutes will be for social networking.

Session Abstract
Fresh off the excitement of re:Invent 2025, where Kiro was featured in every keynote, join us for an in-depth technical session on this agentic IDE that helps developers maintain flow while ensuring enterprise-grade code quality.
In this session, you'll learn how Kiro accelerates your journey from idea to production through spec-driven development—a structured approach that transforms rough ideas into clear requirements, thoughtful designs, and actionable implementation plans before a single line of code is written. We'll demonstrate how to delegate and automate development tasks using Kiro's agent hooks, multimodal agent chat, and MCP support, showing you how Kiro's agents challenge you to think beyond the code and work alongside you to solve hard engineering problems with confidence.
You'll also get a first look at Kiro's autonomous agent, a frontier agent that works independently on development tasks while maintaining context and learning from every interaction, plus Powers specialized context and tools that load on-demand, so you get exactly what you need without MCP context overload. Whether you're shipping enterprise software or authoring a Terraform template, this session will show you how Kiro is redefining what it means to code with an AI partner.
You'll also learn on how to accelerate Amazon Connect AI Agent development with Kiro.
Who Should Attend:
This session is for anyone curious about how AI is transforming software development - no full-time coding background required. Whether you're an infrastructure engineer, cloud architect, DevOps practitioner, Contact Center developers or IT pro who writes the occasional script, you'll walk away with a clear understanding of how Kiro's spec-driven, agentic approach helps technical professionals of all backgrounds build and ship software faster with confidence.
Optional - Please bring your laptops if you would like to do hands-on with Kiro.
Speakers
Imtranur Rahman - Senior Solutions Architect, AWS
Abhishek Pandey - Principal WW Specialist SA, Connect, AWS
Organizers
Abhishek Pandey - Principal WW Specialist SA, Amazon Connect, AWS
Vikas Prasad - Senior WW Specialist SA, Amazon Connect, AWS
Directions & Parking

• The AWS Houston office is located on the 10th floor at 825 Town and Country Lane, Suite 1000, Houston, TX 77024.
• Parking is available in the building directly connecting to 825 Town and Country lane (look for the AWS sign on top of the building). You may park in the garage and bring your parking ticket for validation.
• Please be sure to bring your identification for registration and check in.

AWS Community on Tour is coming to Houston!
The AWS Developer Advocate team is hitting the road this spring and stopping in Houston as part of the North America AWS Community Tour.
Join the Houston AWS User Group for a special evening with AWS Developer Advocates and builders from across the local community.
This stop will feature a hands-on workshop on agentic AI development, along with plenty of time to connect with other developers and talk about what you're building on AWS.
We’ll also be celebrating 20 years of AWS and spotlighting members of the developer community who help make groups like this possible.
Several AWS Developer Advocates will be joining the tour, including Aaron Hunter, Brooke Jamieson, Jonathan Vogel, and others from the DevRel team.
Expect:

• A hands-on workshop
• Conversations with AWS Developer Advocates
• Networking with builders in your city
• Food, beverages, and AWS community swag

If you're building with AWS—or just getting started—we’d love to see you there.