What is the maximum execution timeout for AWS Lambda?

AWS Lambda has a maximum execution timeout of 15 minutes (900 seconds). This was increased from the original 5-minute limit. Functions that need to run longer must be architected differently: for long-running computations, use AWS Step Functions to orchestrate multiple Lambda functions in a workflow; for batch processing, use AWS Batch or split the work into smaller chunks processed by separate Lambda invocations; for background jobs, use EC2, ECS/Fargate, or Kubernetes. The 15-minute limit applies per invocation — there's no cumulative limit. Other limits per invocation: 10GB RAM, 512MB /tmp storage (extendable to 10GB), 6MB synchronous payload, 256KB asynchronous payload. These limits encourage breaking large tasks into smaller, composable functions rather than building monolithic functions.