Senior Software Development Engineer

Amazon is hiring a Senior Software Development Engineer 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

Builds AI ●●●● is how Level rates this software engineer role: the job is building AI systems.
Pay on this posting starts 11% higher than the typical software engineer posting on Level.
The posting mentions fine tuning among its tools and skills.
Amazon has 20,000+ other open roles on Level.
Posted within the past week.

AI in this role

fine-tuning

Build the agentic system that automatically improves campaigns for millions of Amazon advertisers. The Sponsored Products and Brands (SPB) auto-optimization framework uses LLM-based agents, together with auction simulation, ML models and optimization algorithms, to decide what to change, apply the change within limits the advertiser sets, measure the results and learn from them. You'll own the architecture and production systems behind this loop, and because the system spends advertiser money automatically, you'll also set its safety standards.

You'll lead the design and delivery of the core services: the agent execution engine and tool orchestration, the action layer that writes changes to live campaigns, evaluation and experimentation pipelines, model serving and tuning infrastructure, and monitoring. You'll work with applied scientists to turn prototype agent capabilities into production systems that run reliably across millions of campaigns. You'll also partner with science, product and operations to improve the agent architecture, success metrics and tuning loops. You'll work backwards from advertisers: every infrastructure decision should make optimization more effective, safer, or easier for advertisers to understand and trust.

What Makes This Role Stand Out
- Agents that act, not just advise: the system makes real changes to live campaigns, so it demands real production engineering
- 1.6MM advertisers: small gains in decision quality have outsized impact on advertiser success and Amazon's retail ecosystem
- Current agent stack: tool orchestration (including MCP), reasoning frameworks, RL fine-tuning and preference optimization
- Safety by design: spend limits, rollback, audit trails and automatic safeguards are core to the architecture

Key job responsibilities
- Own the auto-optimization platform's architecture and drive its engineering roadmap with engineering, science and product leaders
- Build the agent execution engine, covering orchestration, tool invocation, state management and scheduling across millions of campaigns
- Build the action layer that applies agent changes to live campaigns, with spend limits, advertiser controls, conflict handling, rollback and a full audit trail
- Set the safety standards for automated optimization, including observability, drift detection and automatic safeguards that pause optimization when outcomes get worse
- Build offline and online evaluation (simulation, A/B tests, holdouts) to measure decision quality, safety and incremental advertiser impact
- Build a reusable registry of tools and data (auction simulation, ML models, optimizers, campaign data), and integrate tuning pipelines (RL fine-tuning, preference optimization) with interfaces that let scientists version, roll out and roll back models
- Prototype new system designs and agent patterns, use data to decide which go to production, and meet latency, availability and cost targets, including LLM inference cost per advertiser
- Mentor engineers, lead design and code reviews, help with hiring, and own operations (on-call, COEs)

About the team
The Sponsored Products and Brands team at Amazon Ads is re-imagining the advertising landscape through the latest generative AI technologies, revolutionizing how millions of customers discover products and engage with brands across Amazon.com and beyond. We are at the forefront of re-inventing advertising experiences, bridging human creativity with artificial intelligence to transform every aspect of the advertising lifecycle from ad creation and optimization to performance analysis and customer insights. We are a passionate group of innovators dedicated to developing responsible and intelligent AI technologies that balance the needs of advertisers, enhance the shopping experience, and strengthen the marketplace. If you're energized by solving complex challenges and pushing the boundaries of what's possible with AI, join us in shaping the future of advertising.

This team within SPB guides and supports 1.6MM advertisers in creating and managing their ad campaigns. At this scale, the variety of advertiser goals, campaign types and market dynamics is a huge technical challenge and also a big opportunity: even small improvements in guidance systems can have outsized impact on advertiser success and Amazon's retail ecosystem. Our vision is an agentic auto-optimization system that understands each advertiser and keeps improving their campaigns. It combines LLMs with auction simulation, ML models and optimization algorithms. Advertisers stay in control: they choose the instruction to execute and its limits, see what changed and why, and can step in at any time. We work with Ad Console, Sales and Marketing to find where optimization adds the most value, from campaign structure down to individual keyword bids. Our work builds on current agent architectures, tool integration (including MCP), reasoning frameworks, and model customization through tuning and preference optimization.

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.

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
USA, WA, SEATTLE - 168,100.00 - 227,400.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Senior Software Development 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.

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 Development Engineer 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 November 9, 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

Fine-tuning

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Python C++Machine learning AWS AI agents Kubernetes

Pay

This job starts at: $185k
Typical software engineer job: $167k

This posting starts 11% above the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs

Questions you could be asked

Walk me through fine-tuning a model: what data did you use, and how did you check the result?
How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?
Tell me about a time a model underperformed in production. How did you find out, and what did you change?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Fine-tuning. 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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