Principal Solutions Architect

Amazon is hiring a Principal Solutions Architect in San Francisco, United States. It pays $210k-$284k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.

Level's read on this job

On Level's scale, this solutions architect role is Works on AI ●●●○: the daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
Pay on this posting starts 24% higher than the typical solutions architect posting on Level.
The posting mentions Databricks, RAG and MLOps among its tools and skills.
Amazon has 22,000+ other open roles on Level.
Posted in the last few days.

AI in this role

databricks

ragml-ops

Position Overview
We’re seeking a Principal Solutions Architect who combines deep hands-on technical expertise with the ability to build scalable mechanisms that amplify the effectiveness of our Startup Solutions Architecture team.

This role requires a rare blend of builder’s depth and strategic impact: someone who can still design, code, and operate systems at scale, while also creating programs, frameworks, and reusable assets that multiply impact across hundreds of startups.

Why This Role

At AWS, we’re looking for builders who scale impact. The successful candidate will combine:

* Deep technical expertise (still hands-on)
* Scalable mechanism design (programs, frameworks, enablement)
* Startup empathy (credible in front of developers and co-founders)
* AI/data native perspective (helping startups turn data into their moat)

This role offers the chance to shape how AWS engages startups at scale — while working at the frontier of cloud + data + AI innovation.

Key job responsibilities
Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Mechanism Building

* Design and implement scalable programs, reusable assets, and automation tools that amplify the impact of the Startup SA org.
* Create reference architectures, IaC templates, and enablement content to accelerate solution delivery across startups.
* Develop systematic approaches to capture, codify, and share technical insights from the field back into the org.
* Mentor SAs and drive technical upskilling programs that elevate the entire team’s capabilities.

Domain Expertise & Hands-on Impact

* ML/AI Infrastructure:
* Architect training and inference systems at scale (distributed training, LoRA/QLoRA, quantization, GPU/TPU optimization).
* Design end-to-end ML pipelines and MLOps workflows (data prep, labeling, model registry, deployment).
* Build and optimize model serving architectures and inference systems for cost and latency.
* Cloud Native & Kubernetes:
* Lead design and ops excellence for Kubernetes/EKS, service mesh, microservices, and serverless-first architectures.
* Ensure security, compliance, and observability in containerized workloads.
* DevOps & Reliability:
* Drive GitOps-first workflows, CI/CD at scale, IaC (Terraform/CDK), and automated testing frameworks.
* Apply SRE best practices: monitoring, incident management, resilience, and scaling patterns.
* Data Strategy & Foundations:
* Advise startups on proprietary data strategy as a moat: collection, quality, labeling, governance.
* Architect data pipelines (ETL/ELT, streaming, orchestration) and integrate with modern analytics platforms (Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, Databricks).
* Guide adoption of feature stores, vector databases, and lakehouse patterns to enable ML/RAG use cases.
* Ensure compliance and governance across sensitive workloads (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC2).

Technical Trend Analysis & Strategic Impact

* Maintain deep understanding of emerging technical trends in GenAI, cloud, and data ecosystems.
* Translate insights into actionable guidance for startups and scalable mechanisms for the org.
* Provide forward-looking perspectives on technology adoption, evolution, and competitive advantage.

Scaling & Developer Enablement

* Build repeatable solutions and reference architectures addressing common startup pain points.
* Publish blogs, whitepapers, open-source repos, and technical presentations that extend reach beyond direct engagements.
* Act as a “co-founder whisperer” — translating complex technical trade-offs into pragmatic startup-stage guidance.

Basic qualifications

- 15+ years of specific technology domain areas (e.g. software development, cloud computing, systems engineering, infrastructure, security, networking, data & analytics) experience
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics or equivalent
- Experience developing technology solutions and evangelising end-to-end technology roadmaps that guide IT transformations toward cloud computing
- Experience communicating across technical and non-technical audiences and at C-level, including training, workshops, publications

Preferred qualifications

- Knowledge of distributed systems design and implementation or equivalent
- Knowledge of large scale automation and workflow management or equivalent
- Knowledge of database design and implementation or equivalent
- Knowledge of presentations and whiteboarding skills with a high degree of comfort speaking with internal and external executives, IT management, and developers
- Experience architecting, migrating, transforming or modernizing customer requirements to the cloud

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.

Pursuant to the San Francisco 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, San Francisco - 210,200.00 - 284,300.00 USD annually
USA, NY, New York - 201,000.00 - 272,000.00 USD annually
USA, WA, Seattle - 182,800.00 - 247,300.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Principal Solutions Architect at Amazon rates 66 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Works on AI (AI Level 3 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Works on AI. The daily work is on AI products, without building the model.

●●●● 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 Solutions Architect is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 3 of 4: Works on AI.
The listed salary is $210k-$284k a year.
The role is based in US, CA, San Francisco.
The job was posted on October 20, 2026.
Seniority: lead.
Applications are handled by Amazon. Apply on Amazon

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

RAGML OpsDatabricks

Also common in solutions architect jobs at this level

Python Azure LLM Machine learning Google Cloud SQL

Pay

This job starts at: $210k
Typical solutions architect job: $169k

This posting starts 24% above the typical solutions architect job. See solutions architect jobs

Questions you could be asked

How would you design a retrieval step so the model answers from real data instead of guessing?
How do you monitor a model once it's live, and how do you know it needs retraining?
What are the limits of Databricks that you've run into, and how did you work around them?
Describe a typical day in a role like this one: which parts run through AI directly?
If you removed AI from this role, what would be left, and how do you decide what still needs a human?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: RAG, ML Ops, and Databricks. 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.
Show where AI is part of your daily process, not a one-off project. This role expects it to be a running habit.

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