So just spent 4 hours getting python + numpy working on Lambda. JVM is far simpler than python due to the native code that python ends up using in many of it’s libs consider Clojure/Groovy/Scala/Java over python for many tasks there: Here are arguments you can bring if people suggest python over jvm stuff: Had to setup an AMI for cross compilation It was also surprising that lambda wanted the site packages copies to the root of the deployment zip not at the path in the venv Lastly, you need a fairly recent version of AWS Cli (1.10.x works) to even be able to talk to lambda on the AMI you setup for cross compilation to 64bit linux for python
My clojure code however: Compile on my mac, upload jar using their aws command, voila, all is fine