Amazon hires ex-Microsoft Copilot CTO Pedram Rezaei as distinguished engineer in AWS agentic AI
What happened
Pedram Rezaei, a nearly 20-year Microsoft veteran who was most recently a corporate vice president on Microsoft's Superintelligence team and previously served as Copilot chief technology officer, started Monday (Oct 5) as a distinguished engineer at Amazon Web Services, per an internal AWS memo from Swami Sivasubramanian reported Monday. Rezaei joins the AWS Agentic AI and Emerging Technologies organization and will work initially on Kiro, AWS's AI coding tool, and Quick, Amazon's AI workplace assistant. Sivasubramanian described him as 'a hands-on engineer who is still in the code every day,' and Rezaei's first plan is to 'meet people, learn how things work here, and ship something real.' The hire comes as Amazon and Microsoft compete directly in AI developer and productivity tools, and Rezaei is the latest Microsoft executive to move to AWS this year.
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Start your free 14-day trialWho’s affected
- Amazon (AMZN) — lands a top Copilot engineering leader directly from its chief rival; strengthens AWS's agent/productivity AI push (Kiro coding tool, Quick workplace assistant).
- Microsoft (MSFT) — loses a 20-year veteran who was a corporate VP on the Microsoft Superintelligence team and previously Copilot CTO; a talent signal amid the AI-talent wars.