Portrait of John P. Dias

John P. Dias

Solutions Architect · Pre-Sales & Technical Consulting
Columbus, Indiana · 20+ years in software & IT · 12+ years architecting on AWS · 10 AWS certifications
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Summary

I design enterprise-scale AWS solutions across hospitality, e-commerce, corrections technology and media, and I explain their value clearly to engineering teams and to business and executive stakeholders. My work spans solution design, proofs of concept and architecture presentations that build confidence and drive adoption.

My technical depth covers cloud security and DevSecOps, data architecture, AI/ML enablement and cost optimization (FinOps).

Results

30–50%cloud and infrastructure cost reductions
60%better detection accuracy with generative AI/NLP
80%less outage downtime after a DR redesign
40%higher availability after migrating to AWS

Experience

VAS

Feb 2025 – Jul 2026
Solution and Security Architect
  • Led the solution architecture for adopting Amazon Connect, including AI touchpoints with Lex, Contact Lens and Bedrock-powered agent assist.
  • Designed the data ingest and retention pipeline for AI initiatives (Kinesis, Glue, Athena, S3, OpenSearch, Bedrock), balancing cost, privacy and regulatory needs.
  • Led the DevOps team's move to DevSecOps with a new security architecture, observability practices and incident response.
  • Cut overall cloud spend by 30% through FinOps: storage tiering, right-sizing, Savings Plans, Spot Instances and cost-allocation tagging.

Aventiv (contract)

Apr 2024 – Nov 2024
Solutions Architect
  • Migrated mission-critical on-premises systems to AWS, cutting operating costs by 35% and improving availability by 40%.
  • Led a generative AI/NLP system that detects illicit communications and regulatory violations, improving detection accuracy by 60%.
  • Moved the Digital Asset Management system to AWS (S3, CloudFront, Lambda, DynamoDB), cutting costs by 50% and speeding up content delivery by 30%.

Shake Shack

May 2020 – Apr 2024
Solutions Architect · previously Sr. Manager, Cloud Architecture / DevSecOps
  • Designed the AWS architecture for a high-traffic e-commerce platform: 35% lower infrastructure cost, 20% better performance and 50% more uptime.
  • Redesigned disaster recovery, cutting outage downtime by 80%. Maintained 100% audit-compliance accuracy.
  • Defined the IT roadmap and enterprise cloud strategy, and wrote the AWS best-practice standards the engineering teams adopted.

Subway

Aug 2014 – May 2020
Solution Architect, Technology Innovation Group
  • Built the microservices behind the mobile app, the website and delivery partners such as GrubHub and Uber Eats.
  • Led an Alexa ordering skill and a multi-modal ordering kiosk, and built serverless digital menu boards for developing markets.

Earlier

2006 – 2014

Senior Software Developer at ESPN / Disney. Team Lead, Software Development Engineer in Test at NASDAQ and at Survey Sampling.

Skills

Solution consulting
Solution design, proofs of concept, technical discovery, business cases and ROI/cost modeling, executive presentations
AWS
Lambda, ECS, API Gateway, Step Functions, EventBridge, SQS/SNS, Kinesis, Glue, Athena, Lake Formation, S3, Aurora, DynamoDB, OpenSearch, Redshift, Bedrock, Lex, Connect, Transit Gateway, ELB, CDK, SAM, CodePipeline
Security & DevSecOps
AWS WAF, GuardDuty, Security Hub, Macie, Wiz, Cloudflare, SonarCloud, Docker, Jenkins
Languages
TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Java, C#, SQL, Bash

Certifications

Affiliations

AWS SME Group · DAV (Disabled American Veterans) · VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars)