Profile — Greatnessa

Xolisani Mthimunye

Cloud Support Engineer @ AWS | 9x AWS Certified | Databases, RDS & Aurora PostgreSQL | Entrepreneur

About

Cloud Support Engineer at Amazon Web Services and a 9x AWS Certified engineer — including AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional, Security Specialty, and Machine Learning Specialty. I specialize in managed database services (Amazon RDS and Aurora PostgreSQL), helping enterprise customers diagnose and resolve complex performance, connectivity, and availability issues under high-pressure conditions.

My work spans deep technical troubleshooting — root-cause analysis, network-layer diagnosis, packet captures, and reader-instance/replication connectivity — and cross-functional collaboration with AWS service and engineering teams to drive incidents to resolution. My certification breadth across architecture, security, machine learning, and DevOps lets me reason about customer problems well beyond the database layer, connecting the dots across the full AWS stack.

Before AWS, I spent nearly four years as an Oracle Database Administrator, giving me deep grounding in relational database internals, performance tuning, and production operations across both commercial and cloud-native database platforms.

Alongside my engineering career, I'm an entrepreneur at heart — I founded two ventures focused on software engineering and STEM education, driven by a passion for building capability and mentoring the next generation of technologists.

Recognized internally with the Most Valuable Player and Rising Star awards from AWS Support Engineering.

Based in Johannesburg, South Africa 🇿🇦

Experience

Cloud Support Engineer I — Databases (Amazon RDS / Aurora)

Amazon Web Services (Amazon Dev Centre South Africa) · Sept 2024 – Present · Johannesburg, South Africa

  • Provide expert-level support for Amazon RDS and Aurora PostgreSQL, resolving customer issues involving performance, latency, connectivity, and authentication
  • Lead root-cause analysis on complex cases (e.g. Aurora PostgreSQL INSERT latency) in collaboration with RDS service and engineering teams
  • Contribute to major incident response for enterprise customers, including cross-region RDS connectivity and latency investigations
  • Diagnose network-layer issues affecting database connectivity (packet capture analysis, EKS-to-Aurora connectivity)
  • Recognized with the Most Valuable Player (2025) and Rising Star (2025) awards for outstanding contribution

Oracle Database Administrator

Investec · Nov 2019 – Aug 2023 · South Africa

  • Administered and maintained production Oracle database environments, ensuring availability, performance, and data integrity for a leading financial services organization
  • Performed database performance tuning, backup and recovery, patching, and capacity planning
  • Supported mission-critical banking workloads with a focus on reliability and security

Desktop Support Engineer

Investec · Oct 2018 – Oct 2019 · South Africa

  • Provided end-user technical support, troubleshooting hardware, software, and connectivity issues
  • Maintained and provisioned desktop environments across the organization

Automation Engineer

ControlNet Consulting · Oct 2017 – Oct 2018 · South Africa

  • Designed and implemented automation solutions for client systems and processes
  • Delivered engineering consulting focused on efficiency and reliability

Entrepreneurial Ventures

Founder — Greatness Ambassadors

2015 – Present · Software Engineering

Founded a venture specializing in software engineering, delivering custom software solutions and building technical capability.

Founder — Cultivator Mentors and Tutors

2014 – Present · Education (STEM)

Founded a tutoring and mentorship venture specializing in Mathematics, Science, IT, and Software Development tuition — empowering students with foundational and advanced technical skills.

Certifications

AWS (active):

  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
  • AWS Certified Security – Specialty
  • AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty
  • AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate
  • AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate
  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
  • AWS Certified Developer – Associate
  • AWS Certified AI Practitioner
  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

Microsoft:

  • AZ-400: Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions
  • Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Fundamentals
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals

Skills

Amazon RDS · Amazon Aurora · PostgreSQL · Oracle Database Administration · AWS Solutions Architecture · Cloud Security · Machine Learning · Database Performance Tuning · Root Cause Analysis · Incident Management · Network Troubleshooting · Amazon EKS · DevOps · Automation · Cloud Support · Customer Escalation Management · Mentorship