Principal Engineer — Architecting Ultra-Scale Databases

Amazon; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 271,000; Full time

Job summary

Amazon is hiring principal engineers to design and scale database infrastructure for AI-native applications. You will lead architecture across multiple DB services, ensuring reliability, low latency, and data integrity at planet-scale.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with product teams, and translate customer learnings into robust systems and future-proof designs. This role demands deep expertise in distributed databases, performance, and scalable architectures.

Qualifications

• Experience making architectural decisions that scale and endure under pressure.
• Ability to prototype, ship, and iterate to validation with measurable outcomes.
• Proven credibility to influence across teams and senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Define architecture for services that cannot go down, cannot lose data, and must scale to meet demand.
• Drive technical strategy across your service area, shaping roadmap and investments.
• Solve distributed-systems problems and edge-case failure modes without a textbook answer.
• Build, prototype, and ship production systems trusted by the world's largest enterprises.
• Mentor engineers and raise the bar for design reviews and technical judgment.
• Engage with customers to translate learnings into better architecture.
• Invent and evaluate emerging technologies, pushing DB services and AI boundaries.

Skills

Distributed systems

Database internals

Storage engines

Query optimization

Replication protocols

Consensus algorithms

High-performance systems

Job description

Amazon is hiring principal engineers to design and scale database infrastructure for AI-native applications. You will lead architecture across multiple DB services, ensuring reliability, low latency, and data integrity at planet-scale.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with product teams, and translate customer learnings into robust systems and future-proof designs. This role demands deep expertise in distributed databases, performance, and scalable architectures.