Nicholas Johnson
Engineering executive with 10+ years building platforms and organizations at AWS scale. I lead through ambiguity, design for durability, and find the signal in complex systems — whether that's a rules engine managing 150+ live fraud policies, or a team navigating its third reorg in two years.
I've built a engineering organization of over 50 people from zero, shipped a fully automated startup credits platform that enabled over $5B in downstream AWS revenue, and operated real-time fraud and risk controls in a sustained adversarial environment. I know what it takes to deliver at scale without losing the people doing the work.
Outside the terminal: overlanding the Pacific Northwest, reading philosophy, and thinking about what both have to say about leadership when conditions turn.
Selected Outcomes
Experience
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2016
PresentSenior Software Development ManagerAmazon Web Services · Seattle, WADirector-equivalent engineering leader for AWS Activate — the platform powering startup credits, eligibility, fraud controls, and automated provisioning for over 50K startups per year. Resulting in >5B$ in revenue for AWS.
Built the engineering organization from a blank slate: founded the team, established hiring plans and engineering culture, and scaled to 50+ engineers across 6 teams with a managers-of-managers structure. Promoted ICs into engineering managers and hired external leaders who built their own teams from scratch.
Shipped the full AWS Activate platform — a rules engine powered by Step Functions and AI/ML models, automated provisioning of up to $100K per startup, native Salesforce integration, and real-time fraud detection. Designed and operated 150+ dynamic eligibility policies in a sustained adversarial environment.
Led delivery through two major org scaling phases, multiple reorgs, a company-wide RTO, and a 10% unplanned RIF — without missing core product commitments.
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2014
2016Engineering ManagerZonar Systems · Seattle, WALed a 10-engineer team delivering large-scale fleet telematics programs, bridging embedded vehicle systems with cloud analytics platforms.
Delivered Zonar's first third-party telematics integration for DaimlerChrysler AG, connecting 2,000+ semi-trucks to Daimler's enterprise systems. Performance drove contract expansion from 10% to 50% of net new vehicles; vehicle downtime from powertrain failure reduced by 40%.
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2013
2014Senior Software EngineerCACI · Aberdeen, MDDesigned and delivered field-deployable update systems for constrained military networks supporting the U.S. Army's WIN-T program.
Architected an in-field rapid update system enabling thousands of military vehicles to receive secure software updates in low-bandwidth environments — materially reducing maintenance cycles and operational risk.
Skills & Stack
- AWS (Lambda, Step Functions)
- DynamoDB, SQS, Kinesis
- EKS, ECS, Redshift
- CloudWatch, WAF, CDK
- Terraform
- Java, TypeScript
- Salesforce
- Docker, Kubernetes
- OpenSearch / Elasticsearch
- Org Design & Scaling
- AI/ML Decisioning Systems
- Fraud & Risk Controls
- Platform Strategy
- Change Leadership
Education
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2015M.S. Information ManagementUniversity of Phoenix
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2013B.S. Information SystemsUniversity of Phoenix
Let's Talk
I'm interested in Director and VP-level engineering leadership roles — especially in platform engineering, fraud/risk systems, AI/ML product, or 0-to-1 org builds. Remote-first, open to hybrid in the Pacific Northwest.