The most surprising thing ia that the author had no previous experience in the domain. It's almost impossible to get hired at AWS now without domain expertise, AFAIK.
At least in the organizations I'm a part of this isn't true. We do look for both specialists and generalists, and focus on experience and how it could apply.
It's difficult to innovate by just repeating what's been done before. But everything you learn along the way helps shape that innovation.
