Sr.Software Dev Engineer, DDB Index and Search

Amazon is hiring a Sr.Software Dev Engineer, DDB Index and Search in Seattle, United States. It pays $168k-$227k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.

Level's read on this job

Level rates this role Works on AI ●●●○: the daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
The posting mentions DynamoDB, AWS and distributed systems among its tools and skills.
Level classes it as a senior role.
Amazon has 21,000+ other open roles on Level.
Posted in the last few days.

AI in this role

Build and scale native vector, full-text, and hybrid search indexing and retrieval systems for Amazon DynamoDB.

dynamodbaws

distributed-systemsdatabase-internalsinformation-retrievalvector-search

Senior Software Development Engineer, DynamoDB Search and Indexing

Amazon DynamoDB is looking for a Senior Software Development Engineer to help build two new initiatives: native vector, full-text, and hybrid search; and Krupa, which aims to provide strongly consistent global secondary indexes (GSIs). These initiatives expand how customers access operational data—from finding semantically relevant results to querying current data through alternate keys.

You will work on problems at the intersection of database internals, distributed systems, information retrieval, and consistency protocols. This role offers the opportunity to shape foundational architecture, write performance-critical software, and lead engineering work across multiple DynamoDB components.

Search introduces a new set of indexing and retrieval challenges. How do you organize high-dimensional vectors across a partitioned dataset? Combine approximate nearest-neighbor retrieval with selective attribute filters? Rank results that mix semantic similarity and keyword relevance? You will help build the infrastructure behind these capabilities, including vector and inverted indexes, distributed query execution, and hybrid ranking. Your designs will balance recall, relevance, latency, freshness, and cost while the underlying data changes continuously.

Krupa addresses a different foundational problem: strongly consistent access through GSIs. Asynchronous index propagation creates a gap between a successful table write and its visibility in an index. Closing that gap requires reasoning about updates across independently partitioned table and index data, concurrent operations, transaction interactions, and partial failures. You will help design and implement the mechanisms that preserve these guarantees through retries, recovery, and changes in partition ownership.

Across these initiatives, the engineering challenge extends through the entire index lifecycle. Indexes must be built over existing data while writes continue, maintained as workloads evolve, and recovered when machines fail. You will work closely with engineers across storage, replication, transactions, routing, and the control plane to make these capabilities correct, performant, and operable.

As an SDE III, you will own significant technical decisions and carry them through implementation, validation, launch, and production operation. You will lead designs spanning component boundaries, identify risks early, and create interfaces and implementation plans that enable other engineers to deliver independently. This is an opportunity to combine deep systems engineering with technical leadership on new DynamoDB capabilities.

Key job responsibilities

- Own architecture and implementation. Lead substantial work across search and indexing, translating ambiguous requirements into precise designs, working software, and measurable customer outcomes.
- Build vector and text retrieval infrastructure. Develop vector indexing, approximate nearest-neighbor search, inverted indexes, text analysis, and relevance scoring.
- Deliver distributed search execution.Design partition selection, query fan-out, filter execution, candidate retrieval, top-k merging, and hybrid ranking using techniques such as rank fusion or reranking.
- Develop strongly consistent indexing mechanisms. Design and implement coordination between table mutations and index visibility, including concurrent updates, index-key changes, retries, and failure recovery.
- Build the index lifecycle. Deliver online creation, backfill, incremental maintenance, compaction, rebalancing, and deletion while customer traffic continues.
- Make guarantees testable. Define correctness invariants and search-quality criteria; build concurrency tests, failure-injection scenarios, and benchmarks that expose architectural weaknesses.
- Optimize the complete system. Investigate CPU, memory, storage, and network bottlenecks; quantify tradeoffs among retrieval quality, coordination overhead, write amplification, throughput, and tail latency.
- Lead across teams. Resolve design questions with partner teams, define clear contracts, and drive changes that span storage, replication, transactions, and query processing.
- Raise engineering capability. Mentor engineers, lead design and code reviews, and break complex work into independently deliverable pieces with clear testing and rollout plans.
- Own production outcomes. Build diagnostics and recovery mechanisms, participate in operations, and use production evidence to improve architecture and reliability.

Basic qualifications

- 5+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
- 5+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience
- 5+ years of leading design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
- Experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team
- 5+ years of non-internship professional software development experience, or Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent
- 5+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience, or Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in computer science or equivalent
- Experience leading the design or architecture of distributed systems, databases, search infrastructure, storage engines, or comparable data platforms.
- Strong understanding of algorithms, data structures, concurrency, and system performance.
- Experience leading technical work across multiple engineers or teams and mentoring other engineers.
- Experience taking complex systems through implementation, testing, deployment, and production operation.

Preferred qualifications

- 5+ 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
- - Depth in one or more of the following areas:
- Vector search, approximate nearest-neighbor algorithms, full-text retrieval, or hybrid ranking.
- Secondary indexes, distributed transactions, replication, concurrency control, or consistency protocols.
- Storage engines, including logging, LSM trees, compaction, caching, snapshots, and recovery.
- Knowledge of vector-indexing approaches such as HNSW, IVF, clustering, or product quantization.
- Knowledge of inverted indexes, BM25, query planning, filtering, or distributed top-k retrieval.
- Experience with online backfills, partition splits, rebalancing, or recovery under concurrent writes.
- Experience with formal modeling, deterministic simulation, fault injection, or performance and retrieval-quality benchmarking.
- Experience developing systems software in Java, Rust, C++, or a comparable language.

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 - 168,100.00 - 227,400.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Sr.Software Dev Engineer, DDB Index and Search at Amazon rates 65 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Works on AI (AI Level 3 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Works on AI. The daily work is on AI products, without building the model.

●●●● 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

Sr.Software Dev Engineer, DDB Index and Search is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 3 of 4: Works on AI.
The listed salary is $168k-$227k a year.
The role is based in US, WA, Seattle.
The job was posted on October 29, 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 SystemsDatabase InternalsInformation RetrievalVector SearchDynamoDBAWS

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 database internals was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where information retrieval was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where vector search was part of your work. What did you do?
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, Database Internals, Information Retrieval, Vector Search, 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.
Show where AI is part of your daily process, not a one-off project. This role expects it to be a running habit.

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