Senior Software Development Engineer, EC2 VPC

Senior Software Development Engineer, EC2 VPC

Job ID: 3089888 | Amazon Development Center U.S., Inc.

The primary location for this position is San Diego, CA.
Do you want to shape the future of virtualized (SDN) networking in the world’s biggest public cloud?

The Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) VPC Packet Pipeline team owns the packet pipeline that runs right beneath all our customer's EC2 VPC instances, adding features like firewalling (security groups), billing and monitoring as we touch every single packet on every single host across our massive worldwide fleet. Our vision is to combine the performance of bare metal networking while maintaining all the benefits of the cloud, including delivering features not possible on bare metal i.e. true Software Defined Networking (SDN).

We are growing fast, and are looking for kernel/embedded C leaders who can deliver ultra high performance – our goal is to be processing millions of packets per second on a CPU core. This requires both being able to implement highly optimized data structures, but also low level (including by hand assembly and vectorizing) tuning to our hardware. If you have good experience in C/C++, and a passion for systems software engineering such as kernel or embedded development, then this is a unique opportunity to join us at day one of building the platform which is the basis for all new EC2 VPC features in the years to come.

Responsibilities

• Lead a small team, mentor junior engineers, and ensure best development practices.
• Hands‑on engineering: participate in architecture decisions, design reviews, code reviews, and implementation.
• Maintain current technical knowledge and proactively explore new technologies with the team.
• Communicate with users, other technical teams, and senior management to collect requirements, describe features, and shape product strategy.

About the team

Our team values work‑life balance and supports new members with mentoring, code reviews, and career growth opportunities. We foster a knowledge‑sharing environment where senior engineers guide junior engineers and engineers from diverse backgrounds.

Basic Qualifications

• 5+ years of non‑internship professional software development experience.
• 5+ years of programming experience with at least one software programming language.
• 5+ years of leading design or architecture of new and existing systems.
• Experience as a mentor, tech lead, or leading an engineering team.
• 1+ year experience in leading a team in terms of architecture, mentoring, and pushing best software development practices.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent.
• Experience developing in C or C++.

Preferred Qualifications

• Full software development life cycle experience, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations.
• Effective verbal and written communication skills.
• Proficiency in design and analysis of algorithms and data structures.
• Linux operating system knowledge and development experience.
• In‑depth knowledge of TCP/IP and kernel or embedded development, particularly Linux kernel.
• Knowledge of professional software engineering practices and best practices for the full software development life cycle.
• Experience influencing software engineers best practices within your team.
• Scripting (Ruby or Python).

Equal Opportunity

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status. We consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance.

Inclusive Culture

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, 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.