David Ernst
De-risking AWS migrations and scaling AI to production
🎤 Public speaker · ✍️ Tech blogs
About Me
The most expensive decision I see isn't a bad migration. It's no decision at all.
As Director of Cloud Migrations at Clearscale, I own the P&L for our global AWS migration practice and help enterprises get from "we should move" to running on AWS, with a plan leadership trusts.
Before that I spent nearly 7 years at AWS, advising Fortune 10 customers and leading DevOps and generative AI developer tools as a Worldwide Specialist Solutions Architect. Earlier in my career I worked hands-on as a Systems Engineer, DevOps Engineer, and Site Reliability Engineer (SRE), automating myself out of a job at every stop, so I still think like a builder.
What I Help Organizations Achieve
- → Help engineering teams adopt AI tooling (Anthropic's Claude, Kiro, and AWS Transform) and take AI use cases from proof of concept to production
- → De-risk migrations from VMware, data centers, and mainframes, and modernize legacy applications through an AWS assessment phase and phased execution
- → Offset the cost with AWS funding programs: the Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) for assessment, mobilization, and migration credits, plus AWS partner funding for proofs of concept, modernization, and generative AI projects
Outside work, I co-lead the Tampa Bay AWS User Group (3,300+ members) and Tampa Tech Community, write blogs and AWS study guides, and speak everywhere from AWS re:Invent and AWS Summits to Pluralsight Shift, local meetups, and customer sessions. I also love triathlons: I'm a full-distance Ironman and a multiple Half Ironman (70.3) finisher.