About this role
Description
Are you passionate about building and improving the systems that power services at massive scale? As a System Development Engineer II at Amazon, you will own the engineering and operational health of critical systems, driving improvements that reduce effort, lower costs, and raise quality for your team and customers alike. You will tackle ambiguous problems, design pragmatic solutions, and ensure that systems are resilient, maintainable, and built to evolve. This is a hands-on role where you will write high-quality code, automate operational workflows, and collaborate across teams to remove roadblocks and deliver meaningful impact. If you are a curious, self-starter engineer who thrives on diagnosing complex issues and leaving systems better than you found them, we want to hear from you.
Key job responsibilities
- Design and deliver technology solutions that improve the resiliency, performance, and cost-effectiveness of your team's systems, balancing constraints and choosing the most appropriate technology — whether hardware, software, infrastructure, or tooling.
- Identify and resolve ambiguous problems and architectural deficiencies by performing thorough root cause analysis, diagnosing issues across hardware, software, and operating environments, and implementing permanent fixes.
- Develop and maintain automation, metrics, and monitoring to improve system reliability and operational efficiency, proactively identifying points of failure and reducing manual toil.
- Participate in and contribute meaningfully to code reviews, operational readiness reviews, and post-incident analyses, coaching peers on risk identification and engineering best practices.
- Write clear, accurate, and inclusive documentation and runbooks that enable others to maintain and extend your solutions, and evaluate opportunities to integrate generative AI tools to augment productivity and quality.
A day in the life
You will start your day reviewing system health dashboards and operational metrics, then shift into hands-on engineering work — writing code, building automation, or refining infrastructure to address the most pressing challenges. You will collaborate with teammates and partner teams through design discussions and code reviews, and you may investigate a production issue, tracing it from symptom to root cause. Along the way, you will mentor newer engineers, contribute to strategic planning conversations, and ensure your solutions are accessible and well-documented.
About the team
Our team is focused on building and operating reliable, scalable systems that directly support Amazon's ability to deliver for customers. We value collaboration, inclusive problem-solving, and a commitment to continuous improvement. You will work alongside engineers who care deeply about operational excellence and take pride in making complex systems simpler and more resilient. We are investing in automation, tooling, and modern engineering practices, and you will play a key role in shaping our technical direction as we grow.
Basic Qualifications
- Experience in automating, deploying, and supporting large-scale infrastructure
- Experience programming with at least one modern language such as Python, Ruby, Golang, Java, C++, C#, Rust
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines build processes
- Experience working in an Agile environment
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with distributed systems at scale
- Experience building services using AWS products
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 - 129,200.00 - 174,800.00 USD annually