Alvaro Sanchez Tellez

About Alvaro Sanchez Tellez

I lead a 50+ person, cross-functional organization and am directly accountable for customer and business metrics including engagement, relevancy, latency, and sales outcomes across the experiences I own. My role sits at the intersection of product strategy, technical architecture, and operational excellence, with a strong focus on scaling reliable, app-delivered consumer experiences.Senior engineering and product leader at Amazon, leading large-scale consumer platforms that serve hundreds of millions of users globally. I specialize in building and scaling AI-powered, app-centric experiences that balance customer obsession, business outcomes, and long-term technical sustainability.What I DoAs a leader of leaders, I manage a cross-functional organization including engineering managers, applied science leaders, product managers, and technical program managers across Alexa Shopping Lists, Grocery, and Product Evaluation. I own both technical architecture and product strategy, building intelligent, conversational shopping experiences and complex agentic workflows that autonomously orchestrate multi-step shopping tasks on behalf of customers.Key Achievements• Pioneered early adoption of Large Language Models for shopping experiences, transforming rule-based systems into conversational AI with significant improvements in customer satisfaction and defect reduction • Drove major architectural simplification initiatives, dramatically improving operational efficiency and accelerating feature delivery velocity • Launched new grocery capabilities and built GenAI-powered productivity tools that substantially improve engineering efficiency • Created platforms that reduced deployment cycles from weeks to hours, removing critical bottlenecks for engineering teamsHow I LeadI\'m passionate about building high-performing, inclusive teams and developing future leaders. As a Bar Raiser, I actively shape Amazon\'s hiring standards and have promoted multiple engineers across levels while mentoring ICs into successful managers.I balance strategic thinking with technical depth—comfortable setting vision while diving into architectural decisions, system design, and operational excellence. I believe in using data to drive decisions, removing blockers to enable teams, and championing innovation that delivers measurable customer value.My ApproachEarly adoption of emerging technologies. Architectural simplification. Operational excellence. Building sustainable, scalable systems. Developing people. Delivering impact.

Experience

1. Sr Manager, Software Development and Product, Alexa Shopping

   Amazon

   Oct 2023 — Present · Seattle, WA, US

   Strategic engineering and product leader driving AI-powered transformation of shopping experiences for Alexa. Manage cross-functional organization including engineering managers, applied scientists, product managers, and technical program managers.• Own technical architecture and product strategy for Shopping Lists, Grocery, and Product Evaluation experiences serving hundreds of millions of customers globally• Drive development of complex agentic AI systems that autonomously orchestrate multi-step shopping workflows, transforming customer experience from transactional to conversational• Lead architectural simplification and modernization initiatives across the organization, improving operational efficiency and accelerating innovation velocity• Partner with teams across Amazon (Amazon Lists, Grocery Retail, Alexa Communications, international orgs) to deliver seamless, integrated shopping experiences• Champion operational excellence through GenAI-powered automation tools and sustainable engineering practices• Develop engineering talent as Bar Raiser (260+ interviews) and through direct mentorship—promoted multiple engineers and grew ICs into successful managers• Deeply involved in end-to-end experience design across Alexa devices (headed and headless) and the Alexa mobile app, partnering closely with design and product to shape customer-facing workflows.• Owned reliability and latency SLAs for customer-facing services, balancing customer experience, cost, and long-term system sustainability

Education

• Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

  BSc Computer Science Engineering, Computer Science

  2003 — 2007

• Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca

  Master in Unix Platforms and Web Applications, Computer Science

  2007 — 2008

Skills

• Team Leadership
• Java
• Telecomunicaciones
• Metodologías Ágiles
• Gestión De Proyectos
• Mysql
• Scrum
• Selenium
• Technical Presentations
• Junit
• Css
• Telecommunications
• Ingeniería De Requisitos
• Java Enterprise Edition
• Amazon Web Services
• Problem Solving
• Linux
• Hibernate
• Automatización De Pruebas
• Jsp
• Liderazgo De Equipos
• Pre-Sales
• Team Building
• Eclipse
• Javascript
• Uml
• Proof of Concept
• Cucumber
• Project Management
• Test Automation
• Software Design
• Training
• Customer Satisfaction
• Integración
• Agile & Waterfall Methodologies
• Preventas
• Java Ee
• Requirements Management
• Spring Framework
• Requirements Analysis