Constantin
Gonzalez
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
Constantin is an Expert Generalist with 25+ years of experience bridging technology and business at Amazon Web Services, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems—helping organizations navigate disruptive technologies from early experimentation through mainstream adoption.
He started his career in 1998 as a Systems Engineer at Sun Microsystems, working on microprocessor architectures and distributed systems. After Sun’s acquisition by Oracle in 2010, he continued as a Solutions Architect before joining Amazon Web Services in July 2012. He arrived during the skeptical early days when “cloud” was still a four-letter word in enterprise IT departments and only the bravest mavericks dared using cloud infrastructure for production workloads—often at high personal risk.
As a Principal Solutions Architect at AWS, Constantin worked with customers like BMW, Siemens, Bosch, ProSiebenSat.1, HERE Technologies, and AutoScout24—guiding them through the complete innovation adoption journey from innovators fighting internal resistance to established cloud centers of excellence driving company-wide transformation. At AutoScout24, he partnered with their head of architecture to transform them from a traditional on-premises, .NET, waterfall-driven company into a cloud-native, JVM-based agile powerhouse—a story they presented together at AWS re:Invent 2017. With BMW, he enabled teams to refactor their car configurator from monolith to microservices, covering 30+ branded applications with 300+ API endpoints and fundamentally shifting their DevOps culture.
Beyond technical architecture, Constantin coached executives and leadership teams from Germany’s leading enterprises and mid-sized companies on Amazon’s innovation culture and mechanisms—particularly how Amazon successfully connects AI and machine learning with business outcomes. This work with C-level leaders across major German corporations and international EMEA customers strengthened his understanding that successful transformation requires both technical excellence and cultural change.
Constantin’s core strength lies in his ability to speak fluently across the full technology stack—from distributed systems and AI/ML to cloud-native patterns and GPU computing—while maintaining focus on business outcomes and organizational dynamics. This rare combination makes him uniquely effective at translating technical innovation into business value, whether coaching startup founders on go-to-market strategy or helping PE-backed companies streamline operations for growth.
He educated tens of thousands through sessions at AWS re:Invent and AWS Summits across Europe from 2013-2014, often featuring speakers from Adobe, HERE Technologies, and Expedia. He appeared in Manager Magazin, Handelsblatt, and Computerwoche, and in 2024 coached dozens of speakers to deliver compelling sessions at re:Invent.
Constantin holds a degree in Computer Science from Clausthal Technical University. Growing up across Colombia, Turkey, Germany, and Italy gave him a natural ability to bridge cultures and communication styles. He shares his thinking on innovation and transformation at constantin.glez.de and maintains open office hours—a public calendar where anyone can book conversations for coaching, mentoring, or startup guidance. Outside work, he stays grounded through weekly barefoot runs, jamming with friends on synthesizers, and continuous learning driven by insatiable curiosity.
Essential Reading for Tech Leaders
These three books work together as a complete system for navigating disruption
The Goal
A Process of Ongoing Improvement
