133. Building Businesses in the Cloud with Fiona McKenna
10/17/24 • 28 min
In this special episode of AWS Bites, Eoin is joined by Fiona McKenna, co-founder and CFO of fourTheorem, to discuss startup advice, hiring and growing teams, creating an environment for success, and managing cloud costs. They cover important themes around people, culture, leadership, and finance from Fiona's extensive experience in the tech industry. 💰 SPONSORS 💰 AWS Bites is sponsored by fourTheorem, an Advanced AWS partner that works collaboratively with you and sets you up for long-term success on AWS. Find out more at https://fourtheorem.com. 🔖 Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:28 Advice on hiring and growing teams 06:00 Challenges in recruiting the right people 09:06 Advice for startups growing from small to large teams 12:53 More general advice for startups 18:25 Are cloud economics understood by CFOs and finance leaders? 21:42 Advice for large companies migrating to the cloud 25:35 Tips for starting an AWS consultancy 28:32 Closing notes Find Fiona on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fiona-mc-kenna-174172a2 Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address? Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - https://twitter.com/eoins - https://twitter.com/loige
In this special episode of AWS Bites, Eoin is joined by Fiona McKenna, co-founder and CFO of fourTheorem, to discuss startup advice, hiring and growing teams, creating an environment for success, and managing cloud costs. They cover important themes around people, culture, leadership, and finance from Fiona's extensive experience in the tech industry. 💰 SPONSORS 💰 AWS Bites is sponsored by fourTheorem, an Advanced AWS partner that works collaboratively with you and sets you up for long-term success on AWS. Find out more at https://fourtheorem.com. 🔖 Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:28 Advice on hiring and growing teams 06:00 Challenges in recruiting the right people 09:06 Advice for startups growing from small to large teams 12:53 More general advice for startups 18:25 Are cloud economics understood by CFOs and finance leaders? 21:42 Advice for large companies migrating to the cloud 25:35 Tips for starting an AWS consultancy 28:32 Closing notes Find Fiona on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fiona-mc-kenna-174172a2 Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address? Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - https://twitter.com/eoins - https://twitter.com/loige
Previous Episode
132. GitHub Action Runners on AWS
In this episode, we provided an overview of GitHub Action Runners and discussed the benefits of using self-hosted runners on AWS. We covered options including EC2 and CodeBuild for running GitHub Actions, compared pricing across solutions, and shared our hands-on experience setting things up. Overall, using AWS services can provide more control, lower latency, and cost optimization compared to GitHub hosted runners.
💰 SPONSORS 💰 AWS Bites is sponsored by fourTheorem, an Advanced AWS partner that works collaboratively with you and sets you up for long-term success on AWS. Find out more at fourtheorem.com.
The source code for the project we discussed is available on GitHub: fourTheorem/codebuild-gha-runners!
In this episode, we mentioned the following resources.
- Cloudonaut - Self-Hosted GitHub Runners on AWS
- AWS: Best Practices for Working with Self-Hosted GitHub Action Runners at Scale on AWS
- GitHub - philips-labs/terraform-aws-github-runner
- GitHub - garysassano/cdktf-aws-codebuild-github-runners-organization
- GitHub - machulav/ec2-github-runner
- AWS CodeBuild Managed Self-Hosted GitHub Action Runners
- HyperEnv - Self-hosted GitHub runners on AWS
- RunsOn - Self-hosted runners on AWS
- Actions Runner Controller for Kubernetes
- Biome
- SLIC Watch
Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address?
Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - https://twitter.com/eoins - https://twitter.com/loige
Next Episode
134. Eliminate the IAM User
In this episode, we discuss why IAM users and long-lived credentials are dangerous and should be avoided. We share war stories of compromised credentials and overprivileged access. We then explore solutions like centralizing IAM users, using tools like AWS Vault for temporary credentials, integrating with AWS SSO, and fully eliminating IAM users when possible.
💰 SPONSORS 💰 AWS Bites is brought to you by fourTheorem. If you are looking for a partner to architect, develop and modernise on AWS, give fourTheorem a call. Check out https://fourtheorem.com.
In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:
- Episode 118 "The landing zone: Managing multiple AWS accounts": https://awsbites.com/118-the-landing-zone-managing-multiple-aws-accounts/
- Episode 96: "AWS Governance and Landing Zone with Control Tower, Org Formation, and Terraform" https://awsbites.com/96-aws-governance-and-landing-zone-with-control-tower-org-formation-and-terraform/
- Datadog Security Report (IAM stats): https://www.datadoghq.com/state-of-cloud-security/
- Credentials provider chain in the JavaScript SDK: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-javascript/v3/developer-guide/setting-credentials-node.html
- Credentials provider chain in the AWS CLI: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/v1/userguide/cli-chap-authentication.html
- Episode 45 "What’s the magic of OIDC identity providers?": https://awsbites.com/45-what-s-the-magic-of-oidc-identity-providers/
- Episode 112 "What is a Service Control Policy (SCP)?": https://awsbites.com/112-what-is-a-service-control-policy-scp
- Episode 115 "What can you do with Permissions Boundaries?": https://awsbites.com/115-what-can-you-do-with-permissions-boundaries/
Do you have any AWS questions you would like us to address?
Leave a comment here or connect with us on X, formerly Twitter: - https://twitter.com/eoins - https://twitter.com/loige
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