About

Lee Atchison is a software architect and author who helps companies architect and operate AI-powered SaaS at scale.

He focuses on four things: building AI into SaaS products, controlling what AI costs to run, keeping AI features reliable in production, and designing for scalability and high availability.

Lee spent seven years at Amazon and AWS, where he helped rearchitect Amazon's retail website and built AWS Elastic Beanstalk. He then spent eight years at New Relic, leading the architecture that carried its SaaS observability platform through rapid growth. He also served as CTO of AI company Product Genius.

Today he advises companies through his practice, Atchison Technology. He is the author of Architecting for Scale (O'Reilly, second edition) and The Software Conductor, and creates courses for O'Reilly, LinkedIn Learning, and Atchison Academy. He publishes the Software Architecture Insights newsletter and podcast.

Software Architecture Insights is where Lee shares what he's learning in real time, from the systems he's working on right now, not from a textbook. Every Tuesday morning, it's practical thinking on architecture, cloud scale, and technical leadership from someone still doing the work.

Atchison Academy

Exclusive books, courses, and training directly from Lee Atchison for software architects and technology leaders who want to build, scale, and lead with confidence. Visit atchisonacademy.com.

Lee's Books

• The Software Conductor — a journey of discovery from software developer to architect.
• Architecting for Scale (O'Reilly Media) — how to maintain high availability and manage risk in the cloud.
• Business Breakthrough 3.0 (with Ken Gavranovic) — a five-step process that fuels engagement and drives lasting change.
• Overcoming IT Complexity (O'Reilly Media) — simplify operations and cultivate successful cloud outcomes by taming IT complexity.

Publications

Lee writes extensively for Software Architecture Insights, and has contributed to InfoWorld and Cloud Native Now.