Software Development Engineer, AWS DynamoDB

Amazon is hiring a Software Development Engineer, AWS DynamoDB 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

Little AI ●○○○ is how Level rates this software engineer role: aI is not part of the work.
Tools and skills the posting cites include AWS, DynamoDB and distributed systems.
Level classifies it as a mid-level role.
Level lists 21,000+ other open roles at Amazon.

AI in this role

Design, build, and operate distributed infrastructure systems and test cluster fleets for Amazon DynamoDB.

awsdynamodb

distributed-systemssoftware-developmentjavaccloud-infrastructure

Amazon DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service that does all this and more. DynamoDB is a key-value and document database that delivers single-digit-millisecond performance at any scale. DynamoDB can store petabytes of customer data and handle peaks of more than 20 million requests per second.

As a fast growing service at the core of the AWS Cloud, our business and engineering decisions have widespread impact across AWS, Amazon, and beyond. Many of the world's fastest growing businesses, such as Lyft, Airbnb, and Redfin, as well as enterprises, such as Samsung, Toyota, and Capital One, depend on the scale and performance of DynamoDB to support their mission-critical workloads.

DynamoDB is one of the largest distributed database systems in the world, and we continue to believe it is Day 1 for the DynamoDB business. We are constantly improving and adding new capabilities to DynamoDB, and we are looking for a deeply technical, team-first software development engineer to push DynamoDB even further.

DynamoDB engineers are constantly challenged to think of unique and innovative solutions. The quality bar is high. As an engineer here, you will work on the hardest engineering problems in distributed systems at a massive scale and on multiple dimensions. You will exercise your intellectual curiosity, work with motivated teams of sharp individuals, and get insightful guidance from senior and principal engineers.

This is a hands-on position in which you will own everything from end to end: requirements gathering, designs, design reviews, implementations, code reviews, incremental feature launches, operations, mentoring, and the driving of continuous improvement.

Key job responsibilities
Design, build, and operate distributed infrastructure systems that provision, bootstrap, and manage the DynamoDB test cluster fleet. Specifically:

Own systems end-to-end. Take a problem from design through implementation, deployment, and ongoing operation.

Deliver independently with minimal guidance. Break down ambiguous problems into executable plans.

Debug complex distributed systems issues. Trace failures across multiple services, accounts, and regions. Identify root causes and fix them structurally.

Write production-quality code, maintain high standards for testing, monitoring, and operational readiness.

You own the operational health of the service, triage tickets, respond to alarms, and use what you learn operationally to drive reliability improvements back into the systems.

Collaborate across teams. Engage partner teams to unblock dependencies, review designs, and align on technical approaches.

Influence technical direction. Propose improvements, write design docs, and participate in architecture decisions.

Mentor junior engineers and interns. Review code, give constructive feedback, and help others grow.

A day in the life
Your morning starts with a message: "My test environment won't come up." By 10am you've traced a deployment failure to a race condition between two services, shipped a fix, and unblocked a team of engineers whose pipeline is green again.

By noon, you're designing automation that lets any engineer spin up a fully functional multi-region DynamoDB test environment with a single command — replacing what used to take a week of manual configuration. You're thinking about cross-region networking, security boundaries, and making complex infrastructure invisible to its users.

After lunch, you're debugging a circular dependency that's been silently generating tickets for months. You find it, fix it, and close an entire class of failures.

What makes this role different: You're building the infrastructure that lets every DynamoDB team validate their features before they ship to customers. When you make test environments faster and more reliable, you multiply the velocity of hundreds of engineers.

The problems are deeply technical — distributed systems orchestration, fleet management, cross-account security, credential rotation at scale — but you'll ship code every week and see immediate impact.

The team is small (6 engineers), the scope is large, and the ownership is real. You'll design, build, and operate entire systems end-to-end. You'll work with Lambda, Step Functions, DynamoDB, CloudFormation, EC2 fleet management, IAM, Python, and Java. You'll use AI coding tools daily.

Every major DynamoDB launch validates on infrastructure your team builds. You make that possible.

About the team
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
Here at AWS, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Our employee-led affinity groups foster a culture of inclusion that empower us to be proud of our differences. Ongoing events and learning experiences, including our Conversations on Race and Ethnicity (CORE) and AmazeCon conferences, inspire us to never stop embracing our uniqueness.

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 in the cloud.

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, AWS DynamoDB at Amazon rates 0 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Little AI. AI is not part of the work.

●●●● 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 DynamoDB is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 1 of 4: Little AI.
The listed salary is $144k-$194k a year.
The role is based in US, WA, Seattle.
The job was posted on July 9, 2026.
Seniority: mid.
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 SystemsSoftware DevelopmentJavaCCloud InfrastructureAWSDynamoDB

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Kubernetes TypeScript React Docker JavaScript Azure

Pay

This job starts at: $144k
Typical software engineer job: $168k

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 software development was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where java was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where c was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where cloud infrastructure was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Distributed Systems, Software Development, Java, C, and Cloud Infrastructure. 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.

Want an expert to read your CV for this job?

Free. Send your CV and the role you want next. We reply by email within 2 to 4 business days.

Get a free CV review Get your CV rewritten Check your resume with the ATS resume checker