Engineering-native Leader & Organizational Architect
Senior Technology Leader with a B.S. in Computer Science Engineering and 9 years of technical depth at AWS. I blend sophisticated backend security logic with organizational rigor.
View Leadership Style
Experience
A track record of engineering rigor and organizational architecture at global scale.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Seattle, WA (Remote)
Oct 2016 - Jan 2026
Mar 2024 - Jan 2026
Senior Manager - Technical (L7) | Manager of Managers
Strategic direction for a 50-person org (leading 5 functional teams) within the 200-person AWS Service Docs division.
- Operational Intelligence: Engineered a Python and JavaScript dashboard to aggregate disparate marketing, engineering, and headcount data into a unified executive decision engine for 1,571 launches.
- Platform Strategy: Architected a hybrid org/product folder structure to standardize workflows across 30 teams and used AI tools to map disparate project label taxonomies.
- Release Governance: Mitigated confidential feature leaks by implementing a mandatory launch-date blocking gate, reducing severity-2 policy rollbacks by 62%.
- Developer Experience Architecture: Identified architectural dependencies in a C-suite AI initiative; architected a code-embedded metadata framework to prevent large-scale technical debt.
- Culture of Innovation & Talent: Established a prioritization framework for experimentation and mentored senior staff subsequently tapped for a 350+ person AI upskilling program.
Jan 2020 - Mar 2024
Manager - Technical (L6)
Scaled the content team from 5 to 19 (including 2 managers) across the Identity & Security portfolio.
- Federated Operations at Scale: Replaced siloed models with a federated shared resourcing model; authored the business case for a division-wide rollout to 200+ staff.
- Release Pipeline Architecture: Resolved an AWS-wide deployment freeze by integrating upstream validation into the AppSec pipeline and delivering a foundational docs-as-code layer.
- Identity Governance: Led a division-wide overhaul of IAM Best Practices for 10M customers and coached a lead through a principal-level promotion.
- Talent Strategy: Overhauled hiring guides, redesigned talent reviews for data-driven decisions, and led division compensation planning across 30 managers.
Oct 2016 - Jan 2020
Senior Technical Writer (L6)
Lead Writer for the AWS IAM service, translating complex architectural nuance into customer content.
- Technical Authority (JSON Schema & PARC): Served as AWS-wide SME for the AWS PARC authorization model schema, ensuring accurate model representation for new services.
- Risk Governance: Partnered with AppSec to enforce API-first standards, identifying permission anti-patterns to reduce architectural drift.
- Security Standardization: Architected modular IAM security documentation templates now mandatory for 350+ AWS services to reduce customer misconfiguration risks.
- Developer Tooling & Workflow: Managed complex version control and branching within a Linux CLI and Git-based environment using a docs-as-code methodology.
Hewlett-Packard
Lexington, KY
Feb 2013 - Sep 2016
Feb 2013 - Sep 2016
Programmer Writer
Served as the lead writer for the business unit's inaugural SaaS product launch.
- SaaS Platform Leadership: Defined release standards and managed the architectural backlog across 5 cross-functional Agile teams.
- Technical Product Strategy: Bridged gaps between Product and Engineering, performing software testing and designing UI mock-ups to ensure feature viability.
Lexmark International
Lexington, KY
Feb 2005 - Sep 2012
Feb 2005 - Sep 2012
Software Development Engineer
Re-architected legacy hardware testing systems into software-driven solutions.
- $15M Cost Reduction: Re-architected a legacy hardware testing system into a software-driven solution, saving the company $15M in capital expenditures.
- Full-Stack Engineering & Operations: Developed internal tooling using Java, C#, PHP, and C++. Acted as the primary technical liaison to reduce development bottlenecks.
Leadership Style
The stephkondak Leadership Star: A framework for organizational impact.
I lead through a framework that I call the Leadership Star. By balancing these five points, technical organizations operate with clarity, deliver with discipline, and demonstrate continuous improvement and delivery (CI/CD).
Work
Connecting strategy to customer impact through clear priorities, ownership, and measurable outcomes.
People
Creating psychological safety and clear expectations so teams can execute with autonomy and high standards.
ROI
Allocating time and budget to the highest-leverage work by measuring outcomes and opportunity cost.
Governance
Embedding decision rights, policies, and enforceable controls so delivery stays fast, safe, and auditable.
Sustainability
Protecting capacity by reducing toil and operational drag to prevent burnout and long-term quality decay.
Career Highlights
High-scale impact and operating-system leadership in AWS IAM and platform governance.
AI Safety & Governance
Led engineering for a validation pipeline covering 11,000 IAM JSON reference policies and remediated 3,500 insecure patterns with 93% automated fixes to protect customer trust.
Operational Intelligence at Scale
Built an executive decision engine that unified marketing, engineering, and headcount data to optimize resource allocation across 1,571 launches in Q4 2025, critical after a 75% RIF.
Release Governance
Implemented a mandatory launch-date blocking gate in the IAM managed policy pipeline with exception governance, reducing Sev-2 policy rollbacks by 62% (21→8).
What My Teams Say
"Stephenie's technical depth and extensive experience with AWS and IAM enables her to support a wide range of challenges and earn trust within her organization — she's the trusted authority for IAM across AWS, including the engineering team. She's great at Thinking Big, and her hands-on experience building automations gives her the confidence to push for automation across her team and the broader division."
Kristy Walker
Senior Manager, AWS Service Docs · Direct Manager
"Stephenie is a rare technical leader who combines subject matter expertise, business acumen, and deep empathy. As her organization grew in size and scale, Stephenie grew with it, leading a portfolio of critical governance, security, and identity services. She elevates every effort she leads."
Connie Rock
Senior Technical Writer, AWS · Direct Report
"She brought a level of ambition and energy that was truly inspiring, yet she paired it with genuine care and thoughtfulness that made her leadership feel both strong and deeply human. Stephenie is a leader who uplifts the people around her and invests in their success."
Reem Sabawi
Technical Writer, AWS · Skip Report
"She effectively communicates the contributions of her team and how that work drives business results to directors and vice presidents. She developed other ICs into effective managers leading their own mission-critical projects and teams. Her ratings as a manager and leader were consistently high even while leading teams through challenging and stressful cycles."
Susan Ferrell
Principal Technical Writer, AWS · Peer & Direct Report
"Stephenie is great at soliciting feedback and making quick, sound decisions, which is particularly important for emergency situations like the regular IAM Sev2s her team manages."
Greg Wilson
Director, AWS Technical Content, SDKs, CLI, and AI training sets · Skip Manager
Expertise
Bridging technical architecture with strategic leadership to drive organizational resilience and engineering excellence at scale.
Organizational Architecture
Strategic leadership and 'Manager of Managers' oversight.
Identity & Security Governance
Security and compliance in regulated environments.
Platform & Delivery Engineering
Foundations for internal velocity and scale.
Operational Excellence
Driving technical strategy and business ROI.
AI Safety & Governance
Ensuring secure and ethical AI integration.
Software Engineering
Core technical foundation and full-stack background.
Education
University of Kentucky
B.S. Computer Science Engineering
Let's Connect
I am currently exploring new leadership opportunities in the tech sector.
Copy and write me directly