Summit Speaker Spotlight Series: AWS

This year’s Mobile DevOps Summit theme is ‘Accelerating your Mobile App Success’ so we sat down with Dave Siederer, Senior Specialist Solutions Architect for EC2 Mac at AWS, to talk about all things mobile. 

AWS, a subsidiary of Amazon, provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered, pay-as-you-go basis.

Dave’s 25 minute session: ‘Apple @ AWS—CI/CD developer environments on EC2 Mac’ will see him speak about the latest releases and advancements that have been released by AWS in the last days, weeks and months. Join him on day one of the Summit: October 4th at 5pm GMT. Register now to hear him speak: https://summit.bitrise.io/page/2783515/register 

10 quick interview questions with Dave Siederer, Senior Specialist Solutions Architect for EC2 Mac at AWS

1. Could you tell me a bit about your role at AWS?

Dave is the Senior Specialist Solutions Architect for EC2 Mac at AWS. Dave describes it as ‘the longest job title he’s ever had’ and what it actually means is that he is a Solutions Architect on the more senior side, specializing in macOS. He has worked with Apple for more than half of his life. He started in Apple retail from 2002 - 2008, then moved on to work with an Apple re-seller for 12 years. 

He joined AWS nearly one and a half years ago looking for something new and unusual. AWS stuck out in a number of ways as he was one of those Apple people who didn’t know much about AWS when he first joined and he knew a lot of AWS people who didn’t know a lot about Apple or iOS so his new role was mainly formed to bridge the gap between the two (with the addition of lots of automation). 

“I’m the one who stands between the worlds [AWS and Apple iOS] and likes to script the hell out of them”, Dave Siederer, Senior Specialist Solutions Architect for EC2 Mac at AWS

2. What is the title of your Mobile DevOps Summit 2023 session?

Session title: Apple @ AWS—CI/CD developer environments on EC2 Mac

Session date: October 4th 2023 at 5pm GMT

Session hosts: Dave Siederer

Session description: From streamlining continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) build fleets to securing development pipelines, learn how customers leverage on-demand Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Mac instances for their Apple application development. Find out also how EC2 Mac and AWS partners such as Jamf enable secure end point management for your Apple application development fleets. We’ll cover how customers succeed today, integration partners, along with a look into the future of cloud-based Macs at AWS.

3 key takeaways from this session: 

1. Understanding AWS EC2 Mac instances

2. Learn how to automate/orchestrate EC2 Mac

3. Integrations and partnerships to connect to development pipelines

3. Without giving too much away, what tips and trends do you plan to talk about in your session?

Dave’s session is going to be fun - the session itself will show new advancements from AWS. Some of which have been announced in the past few weeks/months but where it gets fun is that he is going to be taking us through the latest advancements that are just out. 

“There was a big announcement on 19th Sept which we will be talking about in the session - especially  about the new instance type! We have a lot of cool things to show - ways to speed up instance cycle times, new methods of automation and management. That will be cool to discuss as its hot off the press.” Dave Siederer, Senior Specialist Solutions Architect for EC2 Mac at AWS 

4. What are the biggest benefits of Bitrise offering an AWS agent?

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Dave describes the Bitrise offering of an AWS agent as a way to reduce complexity for “people that are doing this [architecture] that don’t usually do it’. It simplifies the complex.

“EC2 Mac was built for developers who are good at developing but they’re usually not good at infrastructure. Even the most talented developers that are good at infrastructure, you probably didn’t hire them for that, so the most important things for us is clearing those obstacles and clearing the way between the code or concept in somebody’s brain and putting it out into a thing that works. To me, Bitrise offering the AWS agent, it’s not just 1 fewer steps, it’s quite a few.” Dave Siederer, Senior Specialist Solutions Architect for EC2 Mac at AWS

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5. How important is it for your customers to have the option of a Bitrise agent for AWS?

“There are other runners and agents from Bitrise competitors that cater the same way Bitrise does but as far as feature completeness goes - Bitrise has been incredibly impressive. On the partnership end -  it has been fantastic to work with Bitrise. It’s not easy to get something of this complexity going. The customers Bitrise have are significant - we’ve been asked about Bitrise in meetings so it’s important for us to be able to say that Bitrise is a solution”. Dave Siederer, Senior Specialist Solutions Architect for EC2 Mac at AWS

6. What was your previous role before working at AWS?

Prior to AWS, Dave worked for 12 years at SHI where he managed their Apple technical programme. Before that, he did IT for a PR firm where he had no budget, which taught him the importance of automation.

7. Are there any mobile DevOps websites or resources that you regularly visit to keep up to date with industry trends?

Dave’s main source of mobile DevOps resources comes through Linkedin as well as Slashdot, the website for all things technology.

8. How important do you think it is to have a mobile-first strategy?

“Mobile-first is becoming a singular being in a lot of ways - there is so much that is being drawn together, especially in the Apple world. Where 3 years ago you could compile an app and it would work on your phone, maybe an iPad, and possibly the Apple Watch or Apple TV if you put in the extra effort, things like MacOS, that same app cross-compiles today.  Apple Silicon means that that barrier is gone and visionOS is taking that barrier outside of the bounds of a display even.” Dave Siederer, Senior Specialist Solutions Architect for EC2 Mac at AWS

“Everything is mobile in a lot of ways - that delta is widening between having a mobile device and having a server and there not being as much in between (and that server not being a server but a cloud). Now you can say ‘I have my data in 12 different places so I can get to it anytime I need’ and the fact that you can do that from pretty much anything in Apple’s lineup means there’s nothing that you can’t really make an app for.” Dave Siederer, Senior Specialist Solutions Architect for EC2 Mac at AWS

9. We know you’re speaking at the Summit but what sessions are you looking forward to attending?

Here are the sessions Dave is most looking forward to attending:

IT'S RAW! Enhancing iOS Developer Experience with Swift Compiler Output & Xcode With Ruslan Alikhamov, Senior iOS Engineer at Qonto | October 4th at 2.30pm GMT

Hacking & Securing Android Applications. With Daniel Llewellyn, Acting Director of Technology at xDesign | October 4th at 1.30pm GMT

Check our the full list of speakers in the Summit agenda: https://summit.bitrise.io/agenda 

10. When you’re not working, what do you like to do in your free time?

“I have a talent for voices that I got from my mother - I can sing a song in at least 6 or 7 languages.” Dave Siederer, Senior Specialist Solutions Architect for EC2 Mac at AWS

Dave is also an old computer fanatic and in his spare time collects Apple computers. His latest project is putting Raspberry Pi into the smallest labeled Mac, which he got from a doll collection.

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Don’t forget to check out the full session with Gema, October 4th at 1.30pm GMT: https://summit.bitrise.io/agenda/session/1203936

Haven’t already registered for the Mobile DevOps Summit 2023? Register now: https://summit.bitrise.io/page/2783515/register