In our second colleague spotlight feature, we speak to Lee Gilmore, our Principal Cloud Architect and AWS Community Lead here at Leighton.  

As a driving force in the AWS community with a knack for solving complex challenges, Lee is passionate about empowering businesses to unlock the full potential of the cloud and sharing his knowledge to inspire others.

In this spotlight we’ll discuss his impressive AWS credentials, explore his professional journey so far and how his role as an AWS Hero aligns with Leighton’s values through community leadership.

So, without further ado, meet Lee…

Can you tell us about your role and responsibilities?

Day-to-day I’m split between two roles as a Principal Cloud Architect and a Community Lead. As a Principal Cloud Architect, I mainly focus on the software development side of things, helping our internal software development team focus on expert level best practices and standards across engineering, architecture, security and DevOps; especially when it comes to AWS. There has also been a strong focus on up-skilling in AI on AWS. Now that team have built multiple products that have made them hit the hard edges and limits of the various AI services – they know at a detailed level what AI services should be used and when, and with what models to suit requirements. More recently I’ve been starting to do more work with clients consulting on things like modernisation, migration and cost optimisation; with some other clients more centred on Well-Architected Reviews and detailed gap analysis to support their own technical strategies and north stars. As part of my role as the AWS Community Lead, I spend of lot of my time shaping the community, particularly around helping colleagues with career advice and providing support when it comes to deciding what AWS certifications or accreditations they may want to take as part of their professional development. Although I am the AWS Community Lead, I love that the role doesn’t just cover AWS, but rather a whole host of things related to software engineering and cloud computing, from engineering and architecture to CI/CD and everything in-between. I also run regular lunch and learn sessions and try to encourage as many colleagues as possible to lead some of the sessions themselves. Outside of work I also have my own blog and weekly newsletter, as well as my own YouTube channel. I also do a lot of open-source work and attend a lot of local and international conferences and user groups, like Serverless North East and AWS User Group North East - all in aid of helping the wider AWS community.

How long have you been with Leighton and what drew you here initially?  

I’ve been at Leighton now for around 6 and a half months. I had an initial conversation at re:Invent in Las Vegas two years ago and was hearing about all the good things Leighton were doing which piqued my interest, but when I heard that Leighton’s mission was to become the North’s leading AWS software consultancy, I knew it was a good fit for me. Leighton has ambitious plans around its software development service and so having the opportunity to help upskill people as part of this offering was a huge selling point for me. In fact, I actually took a ‘step down’ from my previous role as Global Head of Architecture at another business to take this opportunity at Leighton as I was so excited about the work I would be doing. Titles don’t bother me, it is the opportunity for impact that does. Having the opportunity to share my knowledge and do the things I love is more important to me.  

What inspired you to pursue a career in software engineering?

I started working in software engineering as soon as I left University. In fact, my first role was working as an Analyst for BT, mostly fixing bugs. From then on, I realised my passion for engineering and even started doing things in my own time, like building websites for different companies. I’ve always had that entrepreneurial side to me. I then moved on to working for Sage, helping to build and develop their initial AWS serverless cloud services, before going to AO in a role very similar to the one I now find myself doing at Leighton. The one constant throughout was my love for engineering.  

And your passion for AWS? Where did that come from?

I’d say my true passion for AWS first started at Sage, where at the time everything ran off physical servers, like EC2. It was at that time AWS Lambda first came out, which generated a huge amount of attention. We actually had an expensive server running 24/7 at Sage which only ran a weekly job, which took around 2 minutes to run. So, I thought it would be a really good use case to test AWS Lambda. We tried it out and the results were amazing. Seeing the power of serverless was really exciting. After that I started to spend a lot more time learning about AWS and speaking to Solution Architects at AWS, when one of them actually suggested looking at the AWS Community Builder programme. I then spent four years as a Community Builder, which eventually transpired to becoming an AWS Hero.

Tell us more about becoming an AWS Community Builder and more recently, an AWS Hero?

AWS Community Builders are members of the AWS community who are passionate about sharing knowledge and helping to upskill others. Unlike AWS employees, they’re often developers, architects, engineers or technologists who are using AWS at work or with their personal projects, who go above and beyond to share their AWS expertise either through blogs, presentations, social media or open-source contributions. In return, the AWS Community Builder programme offers technical resources, education and networking opportunities.  

Like I said, I applied to become an AWS Community Builder in 2020, upon the advice of a Solution Architect at AWS after I’d started blogging about AWS on my Serverless Advocate website and I spent the next four years sharing my AWS knowledge and connecting with the technical community.  

In 2024 I became an AWS Hero which is a huge accolade and felt like an accumulation of all my contributions to the AWS community over the years. Similarly to AWS Community Builders, AWS Heroes are recognised by AWS for their outstanding contributions to the AWS Community.  

AWS Heroes are considered experts and thought-leaders in AWS and actively share their knowledge and inspire others to build on AWS. I was recognised as an AWS Serverless Hero for my expertise in serverless technologies and for creating content, tools and solutions that advance the serverless community.  

So, since 2024, I’ve been working as an AWS Hero (alongside my day job) which gives me early access to AWS services and means I get to work closely with AWS product teams and other AWS Heroes which is really exciting.  

What are the most important skills you’ve had to develop in your role?  

I’d say empathy and kindness. It’s easy to focus on the technical skills required to have a career in software development, but as you progress into leadership roles, empathy and kindness and just wanting to support people becomes so important. I don’t get paid for the things I do outside of work, I just view it as helping the wider AWS community, and I don’t think that’s any different to being a Community Lead at Leighton – it’s all about helping people, even when you might not necessarily have the time. I think away from that, it’s also important to maintain that analytical mindset and continuously wanting to learn. This is key because our industry changes literally on a daily basis, so if you don’t have that kind of mindset, you can easily be left behind.

How has your role evolved since joining Leighton?

I’ve recently started to become much more involved with clients and potential clients. When I first joined Leighton, the role I’m in now didn’t have any consultancy element to it. I was much more focused on running the AWS Community and working with the software development team. Naturally, I think this role has evolved as I’ve had the chance to get involved with some of the early discussions with new customers, which I feel makes a lot of sense as I know I can give a lot of advice and support. Working as the AWS Community Lead has also given me the platform to start training and upskilling our colleagues, with the aim of then giving those people the opportunity to deliver training themselves.  

This is contributing to giving Leighton a bit more of a voice in the industry, making people more aware of what we are doing with some of the exciting stuff we’re doing with AWS. I’m also doing a number of external talks and supporting some of our colleagues to help write blogs around AWS and also helping people on their journey to becoming AWS Community Builders. I think this is all a reflection of our involvement with AWS as a business and the progress we’re continuously making as an organisation.  

What project or accomplishment are you most proud of in your career to date?

I’ve been involved in a lot of exciting projects across multiple businesses throughout my career, but the one that stands out the most is when I was at Sage, taking a product that was solely UK-focused and costing a considerable amount of money to run, to be fully serverless and capable of running in different regions through convention over config. We were able to scale it to become a global platform whilst also making significant cost-optimisations that had a significant impact on the business. This was the first time I’d had the requirement as a technical architect for full-stack global internationalisation from UI, to service, to database; and at the time there was nothing online about approaches where you could override locale specific schemas, business logic and data through convention, but it was hugely successful which was great. I believe that software is still in use too, across the likes of America, France and Canada.  

What’s do you enjoy most about your work?  

Upskilling and supporting other people in their journeys. I’m still in touch with people I’ve worked with previously from across the UK and USA who reach out to ask for advice from time to time. It’s nice that they still consider me for help, even though we might not work together anymore. I get to spend a lot of my time working with Leighton colleagues helping them grow, with a number of them signing up to be AWS Community Builders, which is really fulfilling.  

What’s one thing about Leighton that stands out to you?  

Definitely the people. It’s cliché, but there’s very much a ‘family feel’ about Leighton. There’s a strong community culture that’s been built here, and that’s very much evident in the company and community days that we run, with everyone working very closely together pulling in the same direction.  

What’s your favourite memory or moment from your time at Leighton so far?  

AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas in December was fantastic. Whilst I was there, I had the opportunity to speak to lots of people about the things we are doing at Leighton and our exciting plans for the future. It really felt like I was flying the flag for Leighton. Our last company day is also one of my favourite moments so far, where I had the chance to speak about some of our ongoing projects to the wider Leighton community. Both of those were big stand outs for me.  

What’s one thing you want to accomplish in your career that you haven’t yet?

I would love to start my own company one day in the future that specialises in consultancy for areas like thought leadership, engineering and architecture, but that’s very much a long-term ambition. I’ve also started writing my own book, but I am yet to finish it – completing that and being a published author would be amazing. Watch this space…

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?  

I try and spend as much time with my family as I can. Away from that, a lot of what I do outside of work is very much AWS-related. I’m continuing to write my own Serverless Advocate Newsletter alongside the Serverless Advocate blog, which is now on its 21st issue and I’m continuing to travel and deliver talks when I can. I’ve actually got a talk coming up at Serverless Days Manchester in February which will be good.

What’s the best piece of career advice you have ever received?

Be kind to people and be easy to work with – I think that goes a long way.

What advice would you give someone starting in this industry?  

Don’t be afraid of failure and just get started making small steps on your journey. It’s often where the greatest lessons and opportunities for growth come from, and as Rumi said: “As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.”