Software Development Engineer II

Amazon is hiring a Software Development Engineer II. It pays $144k-$194k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.

Level's read on this job

Level rates this software engineer role Uses AI ●●○○: an ordinary role that requires AI tools.
The posting mentions AI agents, distributed systems and networking among its tools and skills.
Level classes it as a mid-level role.
Amazon has 21,000+ other open roles on Level.
Posted within the past week.

AI in this role

Design and operate AWS Outposts networking services while building internal AI agents and automation to reduce engineering toil.

ai-agentsdistributed-systemsnetworkingcloud-computingautomation

Most cloud engineers never see the physical world their software touches. On this team, you will. We build the networking that carries AWS out of the cloud and into customers' own data centers—so a hospital, a factory, or a bank can run AWS right next to the systems and data that can't leave the building. When you ship here, your code is soon routing real production traffic on real hardware in the field, all over the world.

In this role you'll design and build the services that keep that traffic flowing, and you'll own them all the way through—not just writing the code, but operating it, watching how it behaves in production, and making it more reliable over time. You'll dig into genuinely hard problems in distributed systems and networking, where the failure modes are interesting and the impact of a fix is immediate and visible.

You'll also help us work smarter, not just harder: a real part of the job is building AI agents and automation that take the repetitive engineering and operational work off the team's plate, so everyone can spend more time on the problems that actually need human judgment. If you like owning things end to end, want your work to matter in the physical world, and enjoy making a team faster as you go, you'll fit right in.

Key job responsibilities
- Design, build, test, and operate scalable, highly available control plane, distribution, and data plane services that route production traffic for AWS Outposts deployments worldwide.
- Own significant components end to end—from design documents and implementation through deployment, monitoring, and long-term operational health.
- Take ambiguous, loosely defined problems and drive them to well-reasoned technical designs, making sound tradeoffs with limited guidance.
- Write, update, and improve AI agents and automation that increase software-development and operational efficiency—reducing manual toil so the team can focus on high-judgment work.
- Raise the operational bar: improve observability, harden deployment pipelines, and drive down the time-to-detect and time-to-mitigate for the systems you own.
- Participate in an on-call rotation for the services you own, and lead the investigation and resolution of production issues, including root-cause analysis and long-term corrective actions.
- Write high-quality, well-tested, maintainable code and hold a high bar in design and code reviews.
- Brainstorm ideas with teammates and review key technical decisions and designs with senior engineers and leadership to pressure-test approaches and align on direction.
- Mentor junior engineers, share context generously, and contribute to the technical direction and engineering standards of the team.
- Collaborate across teams—partner service teams (e.g., S3, EBS, Route 53), networking, and hardware/edge teams—to deliver features that span organizational boundaries.

A day in the life
Most of your day is spent designing, building, and operating the services that route traffic for AWS Outposts and Local Gateway, keeping them running reliably for customers around the world. You'll write and review code, and you'll keep an eye on your dashboards to make sure the changes you ship are flowing safely into production and everything you own is healthy.

You'll also spend real time making the team faster: building and improving AI agents and automation that take routine engineering and operational work off everyone's plate, so we can focus on the harder, more interesting problems. Ideas come from everywhere here, so expect to brainstorm with teammates, sketch out approaches together, and talk through your bigger technical decisions with experienced engineers and leaders who'll help you sharpen your thinking. You'll also work closely with partner teams like S3, EBS, and Route 53 to ship things that span more than one service.

Beyond the day-to-day, you'll have the room to dig into ambiguous problems, decide how the services you own should evolve, and help the engineers around you grow. Because our software runs in customer data centers all over the world, you'll see the real impact of your work quickly—and you'll have a genuine say in how we make it more reliable and easier to operate over time.

About the team
Our team is focused on building reliable, scalable software that customers depend on every day. We value collaboration, clear communication, and a commitment to getting the details right. We believe that great software comes from inclusive teams where every voice is heard and good ideas can come from anyone. As we look ahead, we are investing in new capabilities and technologies that will expand our impact, and you will play a key role in shaping that direction. If you are excited about solving hard problems alongside thoughtful engineers, we would love to hear from you.

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, VA, Herndon - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Software Development Engineer II at Amazon rates 50 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 II 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, VA, Herndon.
The job was posted on October 20, 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

AI agentsDistributed SystemsNetworkingCloud ComputingAutomation

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Python React TypeScript Kubernetes JavaScript SQL

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

How do you decide when an AI agent can act on its own versus asking for approval first?
Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where networking was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where cloud computing was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where automation was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: AI agents, Distributed Systems, Networking, Cloud Computing, and Automation. 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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