Senior Software Development Engineer, Amazon Rufus

AI in this role

Architect and build scalable retrieval infrastructure and agentic orchestrators for Amazon Rufus.

pythonaws

prompt-engineeringsoftware-developmentretrieval-systemsdistributed-systemsgenerative-aiorchestration

Rufus is a generative AI-powered shopping assistant in the Amazon Shopping app designed to help answer a variety of shopping-related questions. Rufus makes it easy for customers to find and discover the best products to meet their needs by helping with product research, providing comparisons and recommendations, answering specific product questions, and more.

The Rufus Orchestrator Platform Engineering team owns the CX and Agent Orchestrators, along with agent Router for Rufus.

We are searching for a Senior Software Development Engineer who is passionate about technology, innovation, and customer experience to join the Rufus Orchestrator Platform Engineering team within Rufus.

If you are thrilled about creating customer experiences that will be used by millions of people worldwide and are eager to tackle technical challenges that have never been addressed before, then this is the perfect opportunity for you.

Key job responsibilities
As a Senior Software Development Engineer in this role, you are a recognized technical leader who drives the engineering strategy, mentors team members, and partners with cross-functional teams to deliver complex end-to-end retrieval solutions. Your work focuses on architecting and implementing robust systems in ambiguous problem areas where both the business problem and solution approach need to be defined.

You will:

- Lead the technical vision and innovation for retrieval systems that power AI-driven shopping experiences on Amazon Rufus

- Design and build scalable, high-performance retrieval infrastructure that serves millions of customers with fast, reliable, and secure responses

- Own features end-to-end, from conception through design, implementation, and production deployment

- Collaborate with experienced cross-disciplinary Amazonians including Applied Scientists, Software Engineers, and Product Managers to conceive, design, and bring innovative solutions

- Improve latency, quality, and relevance metrics in partnership with science and engineering teams across Rufus

- Build critical components of Amazon agentic harness infrastructure.

- Partner with Applied Scientists to perform prompt tuning, retrieval evaluations, and relevance assessments

- Design and code the right solutions starting with broadly defined problems, bringing deep expertise to provide context for current and future technology choices

- Take ownership of the long-term technical vision, product roadmaps, and technologies, defining how systems should evolve

- Build consensus through thoughtful discussions with stakeholders, scientists, and engineering peers across multiple teams

- Work in an agile environment to deliver high-quality software with a focus on operational excellence

- Mentor and grow junior developers, encourage software development best practices, and iterate quickly

- Play an active role in building quick prototypes or proofs of concept in partnership with other technology leaders within the team

- Tackle challenging, novel situations every day and have the opportunity to work with multiple technical teams at Amazon

A day in the life
The challenges Senior SDEs solve for at Amazon are big and influence millions of customers, sellers, and products around the world. We are looking for individuals who are passionate about creating new products, features, and services from scratch while managing ambiguity and the pace of a company where development cycles are measured in weeks, not years. Along the way, you'll learn a lot, have fun, and make a positive impact on millions of people.

About the team
You will be an integral part of a passionate and creative team that encourages experimentation and innovation on behalf of our customers. The Rufus Orchestrator Platform Engineering team works at the intersection of large-scale distributed systems, agentic harness engineering, and generative AI, building the foundational infrastructure that enables Rufus to understand customer intent and deliver relevant, accurate responses at scale.

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

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 - 193,300.00 - 261,500.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Senior Software Development Engineer, Amazon Rufus 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.

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. Open the description and count.

Prepare for this job

A free preview built only from this posting: what it asks for, what you could be asked in an interview, and how to adjust your resume.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

Prompt EngineeringSoftware DevelopmentRetrieval SystemsDistributed SystemsGenerative AIOrchestrationPythonAWS

Questions you could be asked

How do you structure and test a prompt to get consistent output from a language model?
Tell me about a project where software development was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where retrieval systems 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?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Prompt Engineering, Software Development, Retrieval Systems, Distributed Systems, and Generative AI. 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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