Growing a Career in IT Through Trust, Curiosity & Community • Farrah Campbell • GOTO 2025

This presentation was recorded at GOTO Serverless 2025. #GOTOcon #GOTOserverless
https://conferences.gotopia.tech/goto-serverless-bengaluru-2025

Farrah Campbell - Head of Modern Compute Community at AWS

FULL TALK TITLE
Brave Enough to Ask, Bold Enough to Build: Growing a Career Through Trust, Curiosity & Community

RESOURCES
https://bsky.app/profile/farrah.bsky.social
https://github.com/Farrah32
https://www.linkedin.com/in/farrahcampbell
https://farrahcampbell.com

ABSTRACT
From career pivot to cloud leader, discover how asking better questions, earning trust, and investing in meaningful relationships became the keys to building lasting impact—in tech and beyond.

We often talk about scaling systems. But what does it mean to scale yourself—especially in an industry where self-doubt can grow faster than your GitHub contributions?

In this candid session, Farrah shares how she transitioned into tech in her late 30s—without a degree—by leading with curiosity, building trust through communities, and aligning authentic relationships with measurable business value. From contributing feedback that influenced AWS service roadmaps to creating developer programs that bridge gaps between users and product teams, she'll walk through real stories that prove community isn’t just a feel-good word—it’s infrastructure.

We’ll explore:
• How imposter syndrome can be rechanneled into courageous inquiry
• Practical ways to turn community insight into strategic influence
• Building trust as a long-term asset, not a one-time gesture
• Creating value at the intersection of people, purpose, and product

This talk is for anyone growing their career in tech who’s ever wondered if they’re “ready.” Spoiler: you are. And community is your greatest accelerator. [...]

TIMECODES
00:00 Intro
02:01 Trust, curiosity & community
03:19 Scaling systems vs scaling yourself
08:33 Trust doesn't scale overnight
13:15 Community as a learning platform & telemetry
18:17 Purpose, people, product
23:14 Outro

Read the full abstract here:
https://conferences.gotopia.tech/goto-serverless-bengaluru-2025/sessions/3871

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Peter Sbarski • Serverless Architectures on AWS • https://amzn.to/3hJzEUM
Michael Stack • Event-Driven Architecture in Golang • https://amzn.to/3G5e8ST
Ashley Peacock • Serverless Apps on Cloudflare • https://amzn.to/3EU7P85
Jeroen Mulder • Multi-Cloud Strategy for Cloud Architects • https://amzn.to/3FdNDOA

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