Chris Eckhout

Amazon

• Lead engineering for internal AI-powered tools and a shared integration platform used by other teams for AI-driven workflows.
• Own the integration layer that multiple teams use to connect agents and tools to internal systems, and set the patterns those teams follow.
• Look past reported pain points to the workflows behind them, and redesign those workflows using AI.
• Test new workflows and interaction models with small prototypes, then scale the ones that work.
• Lead early work on autonomous agents, working with security, platform, and governance teams to define how agents get identity and what they can execute.
• Weigh new capabilities against reliability and security so that experiments can move to production.

Amazon Web Services

• Led teams of up to 13 engineers owning control-plane components for Amazon MSK and ECR.
• Owned the Amazon MSK control plane, first its APIs and then the workflows behind them, and drove MSK Express brokers to functional completion.
• Cut operational load on the MSK control plane by ~75% by fixing recurring issues, designing out future failure modes, and paying down technical debt.
• Led Amazon ECR archive storage tiers through functional completion and production readiness, up to final deployment.
• Designed and delivered an automated region build process that cut the developer effort to launch a new region by ~70%.
• Coached engineers toward promotion. Five were promoted at Amazon: three from mid-level to senior and two from junior to mid-level.

FamJet (personal venture)

• Founded FamJet, a family travel service that builds a packing list for each trip. famjet.com
• Do most of the development, using AI-assisted tools, and deployed it on Vercel. AI also generates the packing lists.
• Make product decisions together with my wife, who owns the packing lists and marketing.

Savers

Application Architect Lead (2016) → Senior Manager, Software Engineering (2018) → Associate Director, Software Engineering

• Led Savers' move from mostly on-premise systems to cloud-native architecture on Microsoft Azure.
• Built new cloud-native applications, migrated selected legacy systems, and connected cloud services to the remaining on-premise platforms.
• Managed 20 engineers across three teams covering custom development, QA, DevOps, and enterprise integrations.
• Designed and delivered a cloud-based inventory tracking and IoT system, state of the art in thrift retail, that improved visibility and operational insight across the business.
• Set architecture direction across teams for microservices, maintainability, fault tolerance, and observability.
• Worked with business stakeholders and project managers to clarify requirements and make delivery more predictable.
• Grew the team through coaching, stretch assignments, and goal-based one-on-ones.

Starbucks, via Sirrus7  ·  part-time, alongside Savers

• Gave senior technical guidance on a large marketing platform migration, mainly designing a reusable integration abstraction layer.
• Set up Azure development patterns and CI/CD pipelines for the teams to share.

iTrellis

• Led a team of consultants building a custom C# and JavaScript web application alongside the client's in-house developers.
• Managed the client relationship and designed solutions for the client's needs, including refactoring for scalability.

Emerson Process Management

• Led globally distributed teams building manufacturing software used at multiple sites. Was design authority and owned global change control.
• Led a multi-year redesign of a core manufacturing software platform used for verification, testing, and calibration across a broad product line.
• Built and maintained data-heavy systems on Microsoft SQL Server, connected software to manufacturing equipment, and kept legacy platforms running during the move to newer architectures.