AWS Road-to-re:Invent
In late 2025, my AWS journey took a high-speed turn. I was selected to participate in the first-ever AWS Road to re:Invent, a unique technical challenge that combined a collaborative hackathon with a journey from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on tour buses. This experience was more than just a competition; it was a physical and technical “sprint” that allowed me to battle-test infrastructure strategies alongside some of the brightest builders in the ecosystem.
This initiative challenged the community to showcase technical expertise and creativity in the high-stakes lead-up to the industry’s largest annual conference. Over the course of the journey, I engaged with a series of technical challenges and content creation milestones centered around building and scaling on AWS. It served as an intensive environment to share innovative use cases and push the boundaries of what’s possible within the AWS ecosystem.
Scaling Under Pressure
The “Road to re:Invent” was the natural evolution of my work as a founding member of the AWS Community Builders program. Since the program’s inaugural public year in 2020, I have been deeply embedded in the Cloud Operations cohort. While my daily work focuses on the long-term evolution of governance and infrastructure management, this competition required rapid prototyping and immediate execution.
By collaborating with global peers in a mobile, high-pressure environment, I was able to demonstrate practical cloud solutions and architectural best practices through a series of timed challenges. The insights gained from this sprint have been directly integrated back into my daily consulting workflows and the development of my SaaS solution, Quiverstone.
Project Highlights
- Hackathon Competitor: Hand-picked for the inaugural 2025 “Road to re:Invent” tour and technical competition.
- Technical Showcase: Developed and demonstrated cloud-native solutions during a cross-country sprint, focusing on operational excellence and rapid deployment.
- Community Collaboration: Partnered with elite builders to highlight the latest advancements in cloud technology through real-time content and code.
- Inaugural Foundation: Leveraged five years of experience in the AWS Community Builders Cloud Operations track to navigate complex architectural hurdles.
- Strategic Application: Translated competition-tested strategies into scalable multi-account management patterns for Quiverstone.
Application
- I submitted my application a few days late as described in my application video linked here: https://link.rwick.it/acb-app
- The funny thing about that link is that there was no video behind it when I submitted the application. That is my own self-hosted link shortening service (Sink) where I use the link in my application, and put the YouTube link behind it AFTER recording a couple days later.
- After being accepted, the process was quite interesting.
- All selectees were added to a private Slack channel in the community and were given specific marketing and event prep requirements
- Below is my Introduction Video, as well as just a few of the Media Items
- The entire event was Live Streamed on Twitch.tv
- What the whole (7hr) replay here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2632043408
- The entire day was scheduled in 5 minute increments and the whole program was mapped out by the production team.
- It culminated with all 10 teams providing a 60-second pitch of their idea on stage at Midday Madness in Caesar’s Forum to launch re:Invent 2025
Pre-Event Details
Follow along with me and 4 other AWS Community Builders as we compete against 45 others for:
- $100K cash prize
- Amazon/AWS Senior Leadership meet and greet
- Conference Event VIP Access
- and more
Intro Video
UPDATE: My team color is now PINK
Media & Press
A post shared by AWS + AI explained by Brooke Jamieson 🌥️ (@brooke.bytes)
Event Completion
Photos of Pre-Event, Orientation, Bus ride, and judging.
Our Solution
The Challenge was to build a worthless app. A product that doesn’t solve a problem, solves a problem that never existed, or makes an existing problem even worse.
Additionally, we were required to use the AWS Kiro Agentic IDE and CLI. The solution had to use at least 1 AWS Service and was publicly accessible.
The solution we created was ChewView.me. An app that allows users to replicate or create their own gum wall (like that of the Famous Seattle Gum Wall) using a Color (or Chew) by Numbers model.