Software Development Engineer - AWS, Amazon GuardDuty

Amazon is hiring a Software Development Engineer - AWS, Amazon GuardDuty in Santa Monica, United States. It pays $144k-$194k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.

Level's read on this job

Uses AI ●●○○ is how Level rates this software engineer role: an ordinary role that requires AI tools.
The posting mentions AWS, Guardduty and distributed systems 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

Build and scale distributed systems for Amazon GuardDuty's threat detection and malware protection products while leveraging AI development tools.

AWSGuardduty

distributed-systemscloud-securitymalware-protectionruntime-monitoringai-assisted-development

Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously monitors, analyzes, and processes AWS data sources and logs to identify unexpected, potentially unauthorized, and malicious activity within customer AWS environments. GuardDuty combines machine learning, anomaly detection, and malicious file discovery, using both AWS and third-party sources to help protect workloads and data across AWS accounts.

Amazon GuardDuty is seeking talented Software Development Engineers to join a team in our Los Angeles office!. In this role, you will design, build, and operate highly available, scalable distributed systems that power GuardDuty's Malware protection and Runtime Monitoring products. You will work on challenging problems at the intersection of cloud security, distributed systems, and customer experience — building platforms that serve both internal teams and millions of external AWS customers.

You will be a hands-on engineer contributing to the full software development lifecycle — from requirements gathering and system design through implementation, testing, deployment, and operations. You will collaborate closely with security engineers, applied scientists, and product managers to deliver features that protect millions of AWS customers. This is a high-impact role where your work directly contributes to the security posture of AWS customers worldwide.

Key job responsibilities
- Design, develop, and maintain highly available, scalable distributed systems for GuardDuty's Malware Protection and Runtime Monitoring services
- Build and operate metadata services that enrich data for internal GuardDuty teams
- Own and evolve the runtime agent provisioning and agent coverage platform across AWS compute services
- Own features end-to-end across the full software development lifecycle — from design through deployment and operations
- Effectively leverage AI-assisted development tooling to accelerate design, coding, testing, code review, and operational workflows while maintaining a high quality bar
- Write high-quality, testable code and participate in design and code reviews, using AI tooling to improve velocity and consistency without compromising correctness or security
- Troubleshoot and resolve complex production issues, driving root cause analysis and operational excellence — including using AI tooling to accelerate log analysis, hypothesis generation, and runbook execution
- Collaborate with security engineers, applied scientists, and product managers to define technical solutions
- Mentor junior engineers on engineering best practices, including responsible and effective use of AI tooling, and contribute to team-wide standards
- Contribute to operational excellence through on-call rotations, runbook development, and system monitoring

A day in the life
As an SDE II on this team, you spend your time designing, building, and operating distributed systems that protect AWS customers from runtime threats at massive scale.

On any given day, you might be drafting a design document for a new feature, diving deep into code, reviewing a teammate's pull request, or debugging a production issue - using AI tooling along the way to move faster without cutting corners on quality.

You collaborate with security engineers, applied scientists, and product managers to understand their needs and build the right solutions. You participate in operational reviews, contribute to sprint planning, and mentor teammates as part of how the team operates.

The work is varied, fast-paced, and high-impact - every line of code you ship helps protect AWS customers.

About the team
Our team owns two of GuardDuty's core threat detection products: Malware Protection, which scans EC2 workloads, S3 objects for malicious files and supporting AWS Backup and Runtime Monitoring, which uses an eBPF agent to detect threats in real time across EC2, ECS, Fargate, and EKS.
We work at the intersection of security research, distributed systems, and operating system internals - protecting AWS customers from the threats that target their compute and data.

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.

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, Santa Monica - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Software Development Engineer - AWS, Amazon GuardDuty at Amazon rates 45 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Uses AI (AI Level 2 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Uses AI. An ordinary role that requires AI tools.

●●●● 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

Software Development Engineer - AWS, Amazon GuardDuty is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 2 of 4: Uses AI.
The listed salary is $144k-$194k a year.
The role is based in US, CA, Santa Monica.
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 SystemsCloud SecurityMalware ProtectionRuntime MonitoringAI Assisted DevelopmentAWSGuardduty

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Python TypeScript React Kubernetes JavaScript SQL

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

Tell me about a project where distributed systems 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?
Tell me about a project where malware protection was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where runtime monitoring was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where ai assisted development was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Distributed Systems, Cloud Security, Malware Protection, Runtime Monitoring, and AI Assisted Development. 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.
Put the AI tool in a bullet point about what you did, not just in a skills list. This role treats it as a required part of the job.

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