AmazonPrincipal Software Engineer
Amazon is hiring a Principal Software Engineer in Seattle, United States. It pays $230k-$311k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.
Level's read on this job
- Builds AI ●●●● is how Level rates this software engineer role: the job is building AI systems.
- The listed pay starts 37% above the typical software engineer posting on Level.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include AI agents, system architecture and distributed systems.
- Level lists 22,000+ other open roles at Amazon.
- The role was posted within the past week.
AI in this role
Drive the architecture and engineering strategy for AgentCore, a platform for deploying and operating autonomous AI agents.
We are seeking technically deep Principal Engineer to drive the architecture, engineering strategy, and technical standards for AgentCore. AgentCore, is a comprehensive, modular platform for deploying and operating autonomous AI agents securely and at scale, providing serverless runtime, memory, identity, gateway, and observability components.
The Principal Engineer will be a hands-on technical leader, tackling the hardest, most ambiguous problems in the rapidly evolving Generative AI space, and setting the technical direction for a platform that is critical to accelerating customers' agents to production.
Key job responsibilities
In this role, you will build a new AWS service that is going to be trend setting in the Gen AI field. This is an area that requires solving the hardest engineering challenges to enable machine learning powered solutions for our customers. As a tier zero Amazon service our solutions have to be scalable, efficient, and fault tolerant. Experience with machine learning systems is preferred, but not required. You will deliver some of our most strategic technical projects, deliver large scalable systems, design new software systems and have a significant bottom-line impact on our business and competitive position. In addition to delivering critical software, you will draw from a deep and broad technical expertise to mentor engineers and provide leadership on complex technical issues. This position within the Agentic AI team presents a unique and rare opportunity to get in on the ground floor within a fast growing business and help shape the technology, product and the business. A successful candidate will bring deep technical and software expertise, desire to have an industry wide impact and ability to work within a fast moving, startup environment in a large company to rapidly deliver services that have a broad business impact.
Basic qualifications
12+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
8+ years of leading design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
Experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team
12+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience
Basic qualifications
12+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
8+ years of leading design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
Experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team
12+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience
Preferred qualifications
Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent
10+ years of highly scalable systems experience
15+ years of full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations experience
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, Santa Clara - 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 at Amazon rates 90 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.
- ●●●● 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.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in software engineer jobs at this level
Pay
- This job starts at
- $230k
- Typical software engineer job
- $168k
This posting starts 37% above the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- How do you decide when an AI agent can act on its own versus asking for approval first?
- Tell me about a project where system architecture was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where generative ai was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where leadership was part of your work. What did you do?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: AI agents, System Architecture, Distributed Systems, Generative AI, and Leadership. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.
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