Software Engineer, DynamoDB Performance

Amazon is hiring a Software Engineer, DynamoDB Performance 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

Level rates this software engineer role Little AI ●○○○: aI is not part of the work.
The posting mentions AWS, DynamoDB and distributed systems among its tools and skills.
Level classes it as a mid-level role.
Amazon has 20,000+ other open roles on Level.

AI in this role

Build observability tools, instrumentation, and metrics to measure and improve the performance and latency of AWS DynamoDB.

AWSDynamoDB

distributed-systemsperformance-engineeringobservability

The AWS DynamoDB team is looking for a talented Software Development Engineer to join our fast-moving observability and performance team. We create tools and data that allow DynamoDb teams to assess, investigate and improve performance. DynamoDB is a key-value database that delivers single-digit-millisecond performance on a massive scale and incredibly high rate of requests per second. A lot of businesses, such as Disney, Dropbox, Snap, The Pokémon Company, as well as AWS and Amazon external and internal services, depend on the scale and performance of DynamoDB to support their mission-critical workloads.

You and your team have the unique perspective and visibility into the core component's performance in DynamoDB. You will build new instrumentation and metric to understand which components contribute to how much latency, and work on latency reduction efforts at every percentile. Additionally, you will drive and set the performance target for each component and continuously improves DynamoDB's capacity management model.

Utility Computing (UC)
AWS Utility Computing (UC) provides product innovations — from foundational services such as Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), to consistently released new product innovations that continue to set AWS’s services and features apart in the industry. As a member of the UC organization, you’ll support the development and management of Compute, Database, Storage, Internet of Things (Iot), Platform, and Productivity Apps services in AWS, including support for customers who require specialized security solutions for customers who require specialized security solutions for their cloud services.

Key job responsibilities
Key job responsibilities
Our engineers collaborate across diverse teams, projects, and environments to have a firsthand impact on our global customer base. You’ll bring a passion for innovation, data, search, analytics, and distributed systems. You’ll also: solve challenging technical problems, often ones not solved before, at every layer of the stack. Design, implement, test, deploy and maintain innovative software solutions to transform service performance, durability, cost, and security. Build high-quality, highly available, always-on products. Research implementations that deliver the best possible experiences for customers.

A day in the life
As you design and code solutions to help our team drive efficiencies in software architecture, you’ll create metrics, implement automation and other improvements, and resolve the root cause of software defects. You’ll also: Build high-impact solutions to deliver to our large customer base. Participate in design discussions, code review, and communicate with internal and external stakeholders. Work cross-functionally to help drive business decisions with your technical input. Work in a startup-like development environment, where you’re always working on the most important stuff.

About the team
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 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 big data technologies such as AWS, Hadoop, Spark, Pig, Hive, Lucene/SOLR or Storm/Samza experience
- Experience in debugging, profiling, and implementing software engineering best practices in large-scale systems

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 Engineer, DynamoDB Performance 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 Engineer, DynamoDB Performance 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 August 28, 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 SystemsPerformance EngineeringObservabilityAWSDynamoDB

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Python Kubernetes TypeScript React Docker JavaScript

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 performance engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where observability was part of your work. What did you do?
What's a project where you used AWS hands-on?
Walk me through how you've used DynamoDB in your day-to-day work.

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Distributed Systems, Performance Engineering, Observability, AWS, and DynamoDB. 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.

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