Software Development Engineer, Leo AI Foundations

Amazon is hiring a Software Development Engineer, Leo AI Foundations. 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 Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
Tools and skills the posting cites include AWS, RAG and AI agents.
Level classifies it as a senior role.
Level lists 20,000+ other open roles at Amazon.

AI in this role

Design and build multi-agent AI systems for autonomous operational intelligence and satellite network optimization.

AWS

ragai-agentsdistributed-systemsmachine-learningreinforcement-learningagentic-ai

Amazon Leo is Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite network. Our mission is to deliver fast, reliable internet connectivity to customers beyond the reach of existing networks. From individual households to schools, hospitals, businesses, and government agencies, Amazon Leo will serve people and organizations operating in locations without reliable connectivity.

This role is for a Software Development Engineer who will design, implement, and operate globally distributed systems that enable Leo to achieve low single-digit-second query responses within a near real-time analytics layer or lakehouse, with a primary focus on agentic AI capabilities for autonomous operational intelligence and system optimization. You'll architect intelligent agent systems that continuously monitor, diagnose, and optimize the health and performance of Leo's satellite constellation, ground gateways, and customer terminals.

You'll build these systems using the latest AWS technologies and best-in-industry software engineering practices, creating the foundation for AI-powered operational intelligence across the Leo network.

Export Control Requirement: Due to applicable export control laws and regulations, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Key job responsibilities
- Deliver full stack contributions across front-end, back-end, data infrastructure, and AI/ML layers to build end-to-end operational intelligence systems
- Design and implement components of multi-agent AI systems that analyze satellite, ground gateway, and customer terminal telemetry to detect anomalies, predict failures, and recommend corrective actions
- Build agentic workflows that autonomously triage system anomalies, escalate critical issues based on severity and impact, and generate actionable insights for operations teams
- Develop intelligent agents capable of reasoning across distributed systems to identify root causes and coordinate collaborative problem-solving between autonomous agents, ground systems, and operations teams
- Implement reinforcement learning-based agents that optimize system performance parameters based on environmental conditions, network demand, and operational constraints
- Build natural language interfaces and RAG systems combining real-time telemetry with historical data, documentation, and knowledge bases for context-aware conversational interactions
- Design and implement hybrid search strategies combining dense vectors with sparse representations for semantic retrieval across operational patterns and system behaviors
- Implement evaluation frameworks, automated testing pipelines, and feedback loops to measure and improve agent performance, accuracy, and reliability across operational scenarios
- Design and implement components of a scalable S3-based Data Lakehouse with metadata management, automated data classification, and lineage tracking across the Leo constellation
- Implement scalable OLAP-based analytics layer components achieving low single-digit-second query responses and cross-domain federated query capabilities for near real-time analytics
- Implement globally distributed vector database infrastructure with sub-100ms retrieval times and a centralized metrics repository serving as the source of truth for all Leo operational metrics

A day in the life
This role is for a Software Development Engineer who will build new cloud services and APIs that facilitates and orchestrates simulation of software on Leo devices such as satellites, ground gateways, and customer terminals. You will be building low-latency, highly scalable architecture that are critical to getting high quality internet service to customers.

About the team
This role is for a Software Development Engineer who will build new cloud services and APIs that facilitate and orchestrate the Leo AI Foundations—enabling intelligent software operation across Leo devices such as satellites, ground gateways, and customer terminals. You will design and deliver low-latency, highly scalable architectures that are critical to providing high-quality internet service and AI capabilities to customers.

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, Redmond - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Software Development Engineer, Leo AI Foundations 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

Software Development Engineer, Leo AI Foundations is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $144k-$194k a year.
The role is based in US, WA, Redmond.
The job was posted on May 21, 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

RAGAI agentsDistributed SystemsMachine learningReinforcement learningAgentic AIAWS

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Python LLM Machine learning Kubernetes Generative AI TypeScript

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 would you design a retrieval step so the model answers from real data instead of guessing?
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 machine learning was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where reinforcement learning was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: RAG, AI agents, Distributed Systems, Machine learning, and Reinforcement learning. 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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