Sebastian Hesse

Hi, I'm Sebastian.

I'm an independent AWS consultant focused on serverless. I help engineering teams design, build, and migrate Lambda, DynamoDB, EventBridge, and CDK applications. Based in Schmallenberg, Germany, working with clients across Europe and the US.

How I Work

A few practical notes on what an engagement usually looks like.

  • Architecture reviews and second opinions on existing serverless designs.
  • Greenfield builds, either as a hands-on contributor or as a technical lead.
  • Migrations from EC2, ECS, or other compute platforms to Lambda and managed AWS services.
  • Workshops and team coaching, scoped to where your team is today.
  • Remote-first collaboration with CET-friendly working hours.
  • Working language: English or German.

Background

The short version of my path so far.

I've been writing backend software for over 14 years. The first chapter of my career was Java and JVM systems in travel tech and Atlassian's marketplace ecosystem. Around 2018 I went all in on AWS serverless, and I've been a freelance consultant since 2019.

Earlier roles include Software Engineer at K15t building Atlassian Marketplace apps, Senior Interview Engineer at Karat, and an apprenticeship-turned-developer role at TravelTainment.

Certifications

  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect
  • AWS Certified Developer
  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
  • HashiCorp Certified Terraform Associate

Tools of the Trade

The toolbox I reach for on most projects.

AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda

AWS
DynamoDB

DynamoDB

AWS
S3

S3

AWS
API Gateway

API Gateway

AWS
EventBridge

EventBridge

AWS
Step Functions

Step Functions

AWS
SQS

SQS

AWS
CloudFormation

CloudFormation

AWS
AWS CDK

AWS CDK

Tool
TypeScript

TypeScript

Language
Node.js

Node.js

Language
Java

Java

Language

Writing and Speaking

I write regularly about serverless on AWS and occasionally talk about it on stage.

So far that's 35+ articles on Lambda, CDK, DynamoDB, EventBridge, and the trade-offs I run into on real projects. The full archive lives on the blog.

Selected talks

  • Lessons Learned — Migrating 500+ CloudFormation stacks at once

    AWS User Group Frankfurt (and others), Frankfurt, Germany (2025)

  • Enjoy Writing CDK Constructs Using projen and jsii

    CDK Day, Online (2021)

  • Going Serverless (Panel)

    UXDX Conference, Dublin, Ireland (2019)

  • Serverless Monitoring and Analytics

    Atlas Camp, Vienna, Austria (2019)

  • Going Serverless

    Atlassian Developer Day, Las Vegas, USA (2019)

  • Caching in AWS Lambda

    AWS User Group Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany (2018)

  • Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast

    Atlas Camp, Barcelona, Spain (2018)

Have a serverless project in mind?

If you're starting a migration, need a second opinion on an architecture, or want to bring your team up to speed on Lambda and CDK, send me a message.

Email Me Connect on LinkedIn

Available for consulting projects and workshop bookings