Principal Software Engineer, Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) — Advertising

Amazon is hiring a Principal Software Engineer, Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) — Advertising in New York, United States. It pays $230k-$311k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.

Level's read on this job

Little AI ●○○○ is how Level rates this software engineer role: aI is not part of the work.
Pay on this posting starts 38% higher than the typical software engineer posting on Level.
Level classes it as a lead role.
Amazon has 20,000+ other open roles on Level.

AI in this role

The forecasting and guidance team within Amazon Ads is looking for a Principal Engineer to lead the evolution of our agentic recommender systems. You will lead our efforts in leveraging AI to build model explainability, personalization, and enable advertiser experimentation.

As a Principal Engineer, you will be responsible for leading the evolution of our complex and business critical agentic forecasting and guidance systems. Our business sees hundreds of billions of ad requests daily, and customers have hundreds of settings that influence ad eligibility. As customers setup advertising campaigns, your models and systems must return accurate, personalized, and explainable forecasts and recommendations in milliseconds across this scale of data. You will work across deep learning models and AI to deliver these capabilities. The scale of data, latency requirements, and high dimensionality of the problem space make this one of the most complex problems in advertising. Advertising is undergoing a period of rapid change. Ad targeting is increasingly pivoting to an AI/agentic focus, requiring new forecasting capabilities. A PE will be continually asking "why do we do X this way? Does it still make sense?"

Customers rely on these forecasting models to determine how they allocate budgets to our advertising products and configure their advertising campaigns. Your agentic recommender systems will unlock personalized and interactive scenario analysis. You will work closely with applied scientists, software engineers, and product managers to lead the evolution of our product.

Key job responsibilities
As a Principal Software Engineer, you will:

* serve as a technical leader on our most demanding, cross-functional projects
* advocate for expert knowledge in performance, scalability, enterprise system architecture, and engineering best practices
* influence technical decisions across multiple teams
* design forward looking technology that anticipates the needs of the evolving business

Basic qualifications

- 10+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
- Knowledge of object-oriented design, data structures, and algorithms

Preferred qualifications

- Experience designing and building large-scale systems in a multi-tiered, distributed environment (Service Oriented Architecture)

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.

The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.

USA, CA, Palo Alto - 230,100.00 - 311,200.00 USD annually
USA, NY, New York - 220,100.00 - 297,700.00 USD annually
USA, WA, SEATTLE - 200,100.00 - 270,600.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Principal Software Engineer, Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) — Advertising at Amazon rates 23 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Little AI. AI is not part of the work.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Key facts

Principal Software Engineer, Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) — Advertising is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 1 of 4: Little AI.
The listed salary is $230k-$311k a year.
The role is based in US, NY, New York.
The job was posted on December 3, 2025.
Seniority: lead.
Applications are handled by Amazon. Apply on Amazon