Hello World from coles codes

 · 1 min read
 · Matt Coles
Table of contents

Welcome to coles codes, my personal blog where I explore the intersection of software engineering, cloud architecture, and artificial intelligence.

Who Am I?

I'm Matt Coles, a Principal Engineer at AWS. I've spent years building and scaling distributed systems in the cloud, and I'm passionate about sharing what I've learned along the way.

Important disclaimer: All opinions expressed on this blog are my own and do not reflect the views of my employer.

What You'll Find Here

This blog is my digital garden for exploring three main areas:

🏗️ Software Engineering Patterns

I'll dive into architectural patterns, design principles, and engineering practices that help build maintainable, scalable systems. From microservices to monoliths, from event-driven architectures to synchronous APIs—I'll share real-world experiences and lessons learned.

☁️ AWS Cloud Architecture

As someone who works with AWS daily, I'll share insights on cloud architecture, best practices, and practical solutions to common challenges. Expect deep dives into services like Lambda, S3, CloudFront, DynamoDB, and more.

🤖 GenAI for Coding

Generative AI is transforming how we write code. I'll share observations on using AI coding assistants, their strengths and limitations, and how they're changing software development workflows.

Why This Blog?

I believe in learning in public and sharing knowledge with the broader engineering community. Writing helps me clarify my thinking, and if these posts help even one person solve a problem or learn something new, then it's worth it.

What's Next?

I'm planning to publish regularly on topics like:

  • Building serverless applications at scale
  • Infrastructure as Code with AWS CDK
  • Effective testing strategies for distributed systems
  • Prompt engineering for code generation
  • Real-world GenAI coding workflows

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you find something valuable here!

P.S. This entire blog is built with Pelican, deployed to AWS S3 + CloudFront via AWS CDK, and automated with GitHub Actions. I might write about that setup in a future post!