8 Big AWS Executive Departures; VPs And Top Engineers Leave

From Amazon Q’s head of engineering to the general manager for AWS’ Generative AI group, CRN breaks down eight AWS executives who recently departed the $124 billion cloud company.

The $124 billion cloud behemoth witnessed the recent departure of some of its key executives, including general managers, vice presidents and heads of engineering for popular Amazon Web Services products.

Top AWS engineers in charge of solutions like Amazon Q, OpenSearch Serverless and AWS Glue left the company in recent months, as well as an executive in charge of AWS’ Generative AI group and an executive in charge of global data centers.

Some of the AWS executives who left have joined tech competitors including Snowflake, F5 and CoreWeave.

From Amazon Q’s head of engineering to the general manager for AWS’ Generative AI business, CRN breaks down eight AWS executives who have recently departed.

AWS’ Recent Q2 Financial Earnings, Cloud Market Share

Before jumping into the AWS executives who recently departed, here’s a look at AWS’ current global market share and second-quarter 2025 financial earnings.

AWS generated $30.9 billion in the second quarter of 2025, representing an increase of 17 percent year over year. The company reported second-quarter 2025 operating income of $10.2 billion.

In terms of the global cloud services market, AWS is the global cloud market-share leader by capturing 30 percent share, according to data from Synergy Research Group. This is followed by Microsoft at 20 percent share and Google Cloud at 13 percent share.

As AWS continues its global cloud dominance with all sights set on AI, here are eight of the top executives who have left AWS that partners should know about.

Christopher Niederman

Former Position: Managing Director, AWS Industries and Solutions

Years With AWS: 11

New Position: SVP, Alliances, Channels, Snowflake

Niederman was managing director of the AWS Industries and Solutions group at Amazon.

He was responsible for developing AWS’ strategy and go-to-market initiatives in the field to grow in targeted industries through partner solutions built on AWS, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He spent 11 years at the Seattle-based company, including five years as managing director for AWS global systems integrators. Niederman also spent years as general manager of worldwide strategic alliances for AWS.

Prior to AWS, he spent seven years at VMware focused on partner sales.

Last month, Niederman became senior vice president of alliances and channels for competitor Snowflake.

“It’s been an amazing 11 years at AWS and I’m truly grateful for the opportunity I had to build numerous multibillion-dollar global businesses. Now, it’s time for the next evolution of my journey, and I’m thrilled by the opportunity to once again help accelerate growth alongside [Snowflake’s] incredible leaders,” he said on LinkedIn.

“I am looking forward to teaming with our Snowflake partners and leveraging the power of data to unlock innovation and fuel business and modern operating models,” Niederman said.

Vasi Philomin

Former Position: VP, GM, AWS’ Generative AI

Years With AWS: 8

New Position: EVP, Data, AI, Siemens

AWS recently lost one of its top generative AI leaders in Philomin, who helped “build Amazon Bedrock from the ground up,” according to his LinkedIn profile.

Philomin was vice president and general manager for AWS machine learning and AI business, responsible for building and scaling generative AI applications, including the company’s flagship GenAI platform, Amazon Bedrock.

He also pioneered various AWS generative AI and artificial intelligence services such as Amazon Q, Amazon Lex, Voice ID for Amazon Connect, Amazon Monitron and CodeWhisperer.

Philomin also helped lead generative AI efforts and product vision and oversaw foundation models like Amazon Titan during his eight-year tenure at AWS.

Last month, Philomin joined Siemens as its new executive vice president of data and AI.

“AI’s next revolution isn’t just in bits—it’s in atoms,” he said on LinkedIn. “I’ve joined Siemens to help lead what I believe is the next frontier for AI: the physical world.”

Krishna Srinivasan Iyer

Former Position: Head of Engineering, Amazon Q Apps

Years At AWS: 10

New Position: Head of Software Engineering, BNSF Railway

Iyer was head of engineering for AWS’ Amazon Q applications.

Amazon Q was unveiled in late 2023 as AWS’ new generative AI assistant, aiming to transform the workforce experience. It became generally available in 2024. The company dubs Amazon Q as the most capable GenAI-powered assistant for accelerating software development and leveraging companies’ internal data.

“Amazon Q Apps empowers every employee to quickly turn their ideas into generative AI–powered apps to streamline tasks and boost individual and team productivity,” Iyer wrote on his LinkedIn profile.

Prior to AWS, Iyer worked at Amazon for several years as a leading software engineer.

“It turns out, every decade or so, a door opens up in my life that expands my perspective, growth, learning and impact,” he said on LinkedIn last week. “Unfortunately to open a new door, you have to close a current door. Two weeks ago was my last day at Amazon.”

“From Kindle, Kindle unlimited to Manga and Series, to Books Shopping Foundations, to the past 3.5 years in AWS building products and primitives in the AI space, I am blessed to have had a seat at the table,” Iyer said.

In July, Iyer joined BNSF Railway as its new head of software engineering.

Ashok Thirunarayanan

Former Position: Head of Engineering for OpenSearch Serverless, Ingestion and Security Analytics Services

Years At AWS: 5

New Position: VP, Engineering, F5

Thirunarayanan recently departed AWS as head of engineering for the company’s OpenSearch Serverless, Ingestion and Security Analytics Services.

Thirunarayanan built these AWS services from the ground up that could scale to search and analyze petabytes of data, he said on LinkedIn.

The services Thirunarayanan led formed the search platform for AWS’ generative AI and machine learning, cybersecurity, observability, financial and retail services.

Thirunarayanan said he was “responsible for the profitability of the services, controlling operational costs and maintaining healthy margins through a data-driven approach to decision making,” adding that he built a large geographically distributed team of engineers and managers.

Thirunarayanan left AWS to become vice president of engineering for F5.

“After an incredible journey at AWS—where I had the privilege of building and scaling OpenSearch Serverless, Ingestion and Security Analytics into cloud-native platforms serving tens of thousands of customers—I’m thrilled to share that I’ve joined F5 as Vice President of Engineering,” he said on LinkedIn.

Kevin Miller

Former Position: VP, Global Data Centers

Years At AWS: 17

New Position: Unknown

Miller, AWS’ longtime Amazon S3 innovator and the leader of its global data centers, has departed the cloud giant after 17 years.

Miller was vice president of AWS’ Global Data Centers business, which the company pours billions of dollars into annually to expand its customer and AI reach across the globe.

Miller led AWS’ global data center organization, from land to design, engineering, operations, automation, as well as AWS’ energy portfolio and sustainability investments, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Prior to leading AWS global data centers business unit, Miller was vice president and general manager of Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for several years. Amazon S3 is the company’s flagship object storage service.

Miller first joined Seattle-based AWS in 2008 as a software development manager.

“Every page turn [at AWS] has brought excitement and growth, compelling me to read the next chapter. Yet soon, I am closing the large volume that is my Amazon career,” said Miller in a July LinkedIn post.

Miller has yet to announce his next role.

Nitin Bahadur

Former Position: Head of Engineering, AWS Glue and Amazon AppFlow

Years At AWS: 5

New Position: Sr. Director, Engineering, CoreWeave

Bahadur led AWS’ engineering organization for its popular AWS Glue and Amazon AppFlow offerings for approximately five years.

“When I joined AWS, I had the unique opportunity to be part of a young product, AWS Glue,” he said in a recent LinkedIn post. “I’m immensely proud to have played a role in shaping its direction, growth and success.”

Glue is AWS’ serverless service aimed at making data integration faster and less expensive. Amazon AppFlow is an integration service that helps users securely transfer data between SaaS applications.

“Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of building and leading high-performing teams across multiple geographies, navigating the challenges and excitement of scaling a business in a startup-like environment, always innovating and staying nimble,” he said.

He recently departed AWS to become senior director of engineering for cloud competitor CoreWeave.

“The AI space is changing at lightning speed, and I strongly believe that CoreWeave is the place to be for all things AI-native,” said Bahadur recently on LinkedIn.

Arturo Villarreal

Former Position: CFO, Latin America

Years At AWS: 7

New Position: Sr. Director, Finance, Visa

Villarreal held top financial roles at AWS for seven years before departing in July.

Villarreal was CFO for AWS global sales for Latin America for the past two years.

Prior to that, Villarreal was CFO of AWS commercial sales for Brazil for two years.

He also held top commercial sales finance leadership roles over his AWS career.

In July, he left AWS for Visa. “I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Senior Director of Finance at Visa,” he said on LinkedIn.

Prathiban Mohanasundaram

Former Position: Head of Engineering, S3 Express and S3 Edge

Years At AWS: 14

New Position: Sr. Manager, Engineering, Snowflake

After years of innovating Amazon S3 products, Mohanasundaram departed the company last month after 14 years.

Mohanasundaram was head of engineering for AWS S3 Express and S3 Edge services.

For many years, he was senior manager and head of engineering for Amazon S3 Tables and the Data Plane for Amazon S3’s Object Metadata Store, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“After spending 14 and a half years at Amazon, it's about time I embark on a new voyage,” said Mohanasundaram on LinkedIn last week. “I was fortunate to contribute, learn, and lead several journeys at Amazon that mattered to customers not just today but in the future.”

He also spent seven years as a software development manager for Amazon Go.

“While journeys to build great things brought immense pride, not every voyage reached its intended destination. But here’s what makes Amazon extraordinary: at unprecedented scale, failure becomes your greatest teacher,” said Mohanasundaram.

In July, he joined cloud rival Snowflake as a senior manger of engineering.