Software Development Engineer, Amazon Quick
Amazon is hiring a Software Development Engineer, Amazon Quick in Seattle, United States. It pays $144k-$194k 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.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include AWS, prompt engineering and foundation models.
- Level classifies it as a mid-level role.
- Level lists 20,000+ other open roles at Amazon.
AI in this role
Design and build 1P AI capabilities including deep research, artifact generation, and image generation for Amazon Quick Desktop.
As an SDE on this team, you'll design and build the AI-powered experiences that users interact with daily. You'll own the end-to-end lifecycle of these capabilities — from prompt engineering and orchestration logic to integration with foundation models, external data sources, and the desktop runtime. The problems are varied and interesting: how do you generate a high-quality research report from ambiguous user intent? How do you produce reliable, well-formatted artifacts (documents, presentations, visualizations) from natural language? How do you generate images that match a user's creative intent with the right style, composition, and fidelity?
About the team
We're a high-ownership team building AI capabilities for Amazon Quick from the ground up. Our philosophy is simple: we use what we build. Every day, the team relies on our own product to manage tasks, triage notifications, draft documents, and stay organized — if something doesn't work for us, we fix it before it ships to anyone else.
The team spans applied science and engineering, and we operate more like a startup than a large org. You'll work closely with scientists on memory systems and retrieval, with frontend engineers on the client experience, and directly with customers who use the product daily. We value end-to-end ownership, strong opinions loosely held, and shipping delightful experiences over shipping features.
We believe trust is earned through safety — our architecture is designed with least-privilege principles from the ground up, giving users full transparency and control over what the AI can see and do. If you care about building AI systems that are genuinely useful and responsible, you'll fit right in.
Diverse Experiences
AWS values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the preferred qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.
Why AWS?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped innovating — that’s why customers from the most successful startups to Global 500 companies trust our robust suite of products and services to power their businesses.
Inclusive Team Culture
AWS values curiosity and connection. Our employee-led and company-sponsored affinity groups promote inclusion and empower our people to take pride in what makes us unique. Our inclusion events foster stronger, more collaborative teams. Our continual innovation is fueled by the bold ideas, fresh perspectives, and passionate voices our teams bring to everything we do.
Mentorship & Career Growth
We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, mentorship and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.
Work/Life Balance
We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why we strive for flexibility as part of our working culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve.
Basic qualifications
- 3+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
- 2+ years of non-internship design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
- 1+ years of software development engineer or related occupational experience
- 1+ years of designing and developing large-scale, multi-tiered, multi-threaded, embedded or distributed software applications, tools, systems, and services using: C#, C++, Java, or Perl experience
- 1+ years of Object Oriented Design experience
- Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field
- Experience programming with at least one software programming language
Preferred qualifications
- 3+ 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, WA, Seattle - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually
How we rate this
Software Development Engineer, Amazon Quick 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
- $144k
- Typical software engineer job
- $167k
This posting starts 14% below the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs
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 foundation models was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where ai orchestration was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where system design was part of your work. What did you do?
- Walk me through how you've used AWS in your day-to-day work.
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Prompt engineering, Foundation Models, AI Orchestration, System Design, and AWS. 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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