10 Years of AWS User Group Vienna

Feb 09, 2026

10 Years of AWS User Group Vienna - Why This Community Still Matters to Me

I didn’t start with AWS because of certifications, service announcements, or architecture diagrams.

I started with AWS because of people.

Back then, I was learning by doing. I’d try something, get stuck, google it, read a blog post, watch a video, try again. And whenever I was really blocked, what helped most wasn’t another marketing page or a generic tutorial - it was knowing there were real humans out there who had already built something similar and were willing to share what they learned.

That’s what “community” meant to me from the beginning: not a brand, not a logo, not an event format - but a way of learning that doesn’t happen alone.

From consuming knowledge to creating space for it

For a long time, meetups were simply a place I went to. A place where learning felt social instead of lonely. Where you could hear how other people solved problems in the real world - not in perfect example projects.

At some point, my role shifted. Not because I planned to “lead a community”, but because I realised something very practical:

If we want this kind of space to exist, someone has to keep opening the door.

And I wanted the door to stay open.

That’s also why it feels so natural to say: I started with AWS because of the community. Because there was someone I could ask. Because there were people who shared their knowledge publicly - and those voices weren’t abstract. They were reachable. They showed up. They spoke at meetups. They answered questions. They stayed after the talk.

Over time, some of those people became friends.

COVID: my first meetups to organize

One thing many people don’t realize is that my first meetups as an organizer happened during COVID.

No rooms. No hallway chats. No “let’s grab a drink after”.

Just online events, shared screens, and that strange feeling of speaking into a camera while you don’t fully know who’s there or how it lands.

But we didn’t stop.

We kept organizing online meetups because learning didn’t stop - and honestly, in that period, connection mattered even more. People were isolated, projects were still running, and questions still existed. So we created structure, invited speakers, and kept the rhythm alive.

Looking back, those online meetups weren’t just “a replacement”. They were proof that the community is not the room. The community is the people who show up anyway.

Coming back onsite - and rebuilding momentum

When we finally returned to onsite meetups, I expected things to go back to normal quickly.

They didn’t.

The first in-person meetups were around 20 people. No packed room. No big buzz. Just a smaller group, familiar faces, and a lot of uncertainty about what “normal” even meant now.

And that was okay.

What mattered is that we continued. We kept organizing even when it would have been easier to pause. We kept creating reasons for people to come back, reconnect, and learn together again.

It took about a year until we were really back on track - but that year taught me something important:

Community is built through consistency, not hype.

The Stammtisch, new groups, and different kinds of learning

Not everything needs slides. Not everything needs a stage.

The AWS Stammtisch exists because some of the best conversations don’t fit into a talk format. It’s where people bring half-formed ideas, real challenges, and questions that turn into solid discussions.

And alongside that, the AWS Women’s User Group Vienna exists because not everyone experiences tech spaces in the same way. Sometimes people need a different room, a different dynamic, and explicit encouragement - especially when it comes to asking questions, speaking up, or taking the first step onto a stage.

It doesn’t replace the main user group. It complements it. It creates another door into the same ecosystem.

And coming back to the idea of why this group actually exists: because of the inspiration of AWS Women's User Group Berlin, which was the first Women's User Group in EMEA followed by AWS Women's User Group Munich and now Vienna.

What I love most: connecting voices that teach and voices that want to learn

One of my favourite things about the AWS community in Austria is that it brings together very different people:

people who write blogs and record videos
people who build quietly in companies and rarely post online
people who love teaching
people who are just starting and still forming their questions

All of them end up in the same room.

The people I once learned from online are now speakers at our meetups. And the people asking questions today might be the ones on stage tomorrow. That cycle - learning, sharing, returning - is one of the most valuable things a community can create.

10 years - and we’re not done

The AWS User Group Vienna recently crossed the 10-year mark. That’s a long time for a volunteer-driven tech community.

What kept it alive wasn’t growth for growth’s sake - it was continuity.

We didn’t stop during COVID. We didn’t stop when attendance was low. We didn’t stop when it would have been easy to say “maybe later”.

We kept creating space. We kept sharing knowledge. We kept connecting people.

And we’ll continue doing exactly that.

Because for me, AWS was never just a cloud platform. It was - and still is - a community where someone is willing to help you figure things out.

And that is worth protecting.

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