Senior Software Dev Engineer, GuardDuty

Amazon is hiring a Senior Software Dev Engineer, GuardDuty in New York, United States. It pays $185k-$250k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.

Level's read on this job

On Level's scale, this role is Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
The posting mentions distributed systems, machine learning and security among its tools and skills.
Level classes it as a senior role.
Amazon has 20,000+ other open roles on Level.

AI in this role

Senior Software Engineer building scalable ML-driven threat detection systems for AWS GuardDuty.

distributed-systemsmachine-learningsecuritysoftware-engineeringcloud-security

Amazon GuardDuty is a customer-facing threat detection service that is built to protect applications and services running on AWS. The service applies advanced data analytics to high-volume service logs and employs techniques such as machine learning, anomaly detection, and threat intelligence to identify and respond to potential risks at scale. https://aws.amazon.com/guardduty/

The Amazon GuardDuty team is looking for a highly skilled and innovative senior software engineer to help build the future of the service. You will work closely with applied scientists with Math PhDs and security researchers to codify security analytics into the service. These researchers apply advanced statistics, machine learning, and deep learning algorithms to build new detections across a range of domains — including cloud security, network security, and the emerging field of AI security — and you will help turn that research into production systems at AWS scale. Our mission is to develop massively scalable, globally distributed detection systems that protect AWS customers from evolving threats and strengthen their security and compliance posture.

Key job responsibilities
- Design, build, and operate large-scale, distributed security detection systems.
- Collaborate with applied scientists and security researchers to transform research outcomes—such as anomaly detection methods and large language model (LLM)–based approaches—into scalable, production-ready systems.
- Own the full software development lifecycle, including scoping, planning, conception, design, implementation, testing, documentation, delivery, and maintenance.
- Conduct design and code reviews for other engineers, providing feedback on architecture, integration, scalability, and performance.
- Operate in a highly available, customer-facing environment with on-call responsibilities (typically one week every two months), and build fault-tolerant systems that minimize operational load.
- Participate in root cause analysis and long-term improvements so we don't get paged for the same issue twice.

About the team
Our team is dedicated to supporting new team members. Our team has a broad mix of experience levels and Amazon tenures, and we’re building an environment that celebrates knowledge sharing and mentorship. Our principal engineers and senior engineers truly enjoy mentoring more junior engineers and engineers from non-traditional backgrounds through one-on-one mentoring and thorough, but kind, code reviews. We care about your career growth. We try to assign projects and tasks based on what will help each team member develop into a better-rounded engineer and enable them to take on more complex tasks in the future.

Basic qualifications

- 5+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
- 5+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience
- 5+ 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

Preferred qualifications

- 5+ years of full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations experience
- Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent
- 10+ years of practical work applying ML to solve complex problems experience
- Experience with any combination of the following: application security frameworks, identity and access controls, incident response, mobile security, cloud computing and security, AI security, threat intelligence, and penetration testing
- Experience with security and systems that handle sensitive data

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

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, NY, New York - 184,900.00 - 250,200.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Senior Software Dev Engineer, GuardDuty at Amazon rates 80 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.

Classification

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.

Key facts

Senior Software Dev Engineer, GuardDuty is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $185k-$250k a year.
The role is based in US, NY, New York.
The job was posted on September 2, 2026.
Seniority: senior.
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

Distributed SystemsMachine learningSecuritySoftware EngineeringCloud Security

Questions you could be asked

Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where machine learning was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where security was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where software engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where cloud security was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Distributed Systems, Machine learning, Security, Software Engineering, and Cloud Security. 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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