Sr. Software Development Engineer, AWS Security

Amazon is hiring a Sr. Software Development Engineer, AWS Security. It pays $168k-$227k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.

Level's read on this job

On Level's scale, this software engineer role is Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
The listed pay starts close to the typical software engineer posting on Level.
Tools and skills the posting cites include Bedrock, SageMaker and RAG.
Level classifies it as a senior role.
Level lists 20,000+ other open roles at Amazon.

AI in this role

Builds AI-powered security applications and LLM-based systems for open-source code scanning and remediation.

BedrockSageMaker

ragai-automationsoftware-engineeringllmssecurity-automation

At Amazon, Security is our highest priority. Are you interested in shaping the future of security for AWS, our customers, and the broader open source community? Do you want to be part of building something with massive impact? Our AWS Security Customer Outcomes Team is looking for strong software engineers as we help improve the security of open source software and the safety of the software supply chain generally.

Today is just the beginning, and we want you to be part of our journey to innovate the way in which our users experience security. Our systems operate on a global scale across a diverse ecosystem of field teams, security requirements, and tooling.

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to define, design, build, and operate AI-powered security solutions across the full pipeline of open source software usage. You will build intelligent automation that augments manual identification, analysis, and remediation workflows, enforces security guardrails for agents and human experts, and provides data-driven insights to AWS leadership. This is a high-autonomy role requiring the ability to work with both internal and external stakeholders to elicit key needs and independently develop solutions from whiteboard to production while mentoring and upskilling security engineers on the team.

Key job responsibilities
Key Responsibilities

Architect and build AI-powered security applications and tooling — Design and implement LLM-based systems (leveraging Bedrock, SageMaker, and RAG patterns) for intelligent code scanning, severity assessments, and remediation alternatives.

Transform manual processes – Reimagine and deliver change from low throughput, human-dependent processes into high volume, machine speed pipelines without sacrificing key quality metrics.

Collaborate with and influence other leaders – The open source ecosystem has many stakeholders, and change requires listening and supporting but also influencing and leading through action.

Drive proactive security automation — Build systems that identify and remediate security issues in deliverables (code, threat models, content) without requiring explicit builder consent at every step, moving from reactive reviews to proactive prevention

Own operational excellence — Define and maintain SLAs, monitoring, alerting, runbooks, and incident response for services you own; participate in on-call rotation to support 24/7 availability

Lead technical design — Produce design documents, conduct trade-off analysis, and drive alignment across organizations.

Raise the engineering bar — Mentor security engineers, conduct code and design reviews, and contribute to team standards; proactively upskill existing SecEngs toward SDE capabilities where appropriate

About the team
At Amazon, security is central to maintaining customer trust and delivering delightful customer experiences. Our organization is responsible for creating and maintaining a high bar for security across all of Amazon’s products and services. We offer talented security professionals the chance to accelerate their careers with opportunities to build experience in a wide variety of areas including cloud, devices, retail, entertainment, healthcare, operations, and physical stores.

Diverse Experiences
Amazon Security values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the 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 Amazon Security?
At Amazon, security is central to maintaining customer trust and delivering delightful customer experiences. Our organization is responsible for creating and maintaining a high bar for security across all of Amazon’s products and services. We offer talented security professionals the chance to accelerate their careers with opportunities to build experience in a wide variety of areas including cloud, devices, retail, entertainment, healthcare, operations, and physical stores.

Inclusive Team Culture
In Amazon Security, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Ongoing DEI events and learning experiences inspire us to continue learning and to embrace our uniqueness. Addressing the toughest security challenges requires that we seek out and celebrate a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and voices.

Training & 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, training, 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 flexible work hours and arrangements are part of our culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve.

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
- Knowledge of Machine Learning and LLM fundamentals, including transformer architecture, training/inference lifecycles, and optimization techniques
- Experience contributing to open source projects (e.g., submitting pull requests, reviewing code, filing or triaging issues) and driving features or fixes upstream into third-party open source projects used in production systems.

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
- Experience in developing and deploying LLMs in production on GPUs, Neuron, TPU or other AI acceleration hardware
- Experience maintaining or co-maintaining an open source repository, including issue handling, release management, and community moderation.
- Experience with open source security practices such as vulnerability disclosure, dependency auditing, or the use of AI to analyze and remediate vulnerabilities.

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 - 168,100.00 - 227,400.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Sr. Software Development Engineer, AWS Security at Amazon rates 85 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

Sr. Software Development Engineer, AWS Security is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $168k-$227k a year.
The role is based in US, VA, Herndon.
The job was posted on September 22, 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 AutomationSoftware EngineeringLLMsSecurity AutomationBedrockSageMaker

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Python C++AI agents Kubernetes Java Generative AI

Pay

This job starts at: $168k
Typical software engineer job: $167k

This posting starts close to 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?
Tell me about a workflow you automated with AI tools, end to end.
Tell me about a project where software engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where llms was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where security automation was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: RAG, AI Automation, Software Engineering, LLMs, and Security 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.
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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