Principal Software Engineer, Distributed Coding Agents, Kiro

Socket.dev; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 271,000; Full time

Job summary

Amazon seeks Principal Engineers to provide technical leadership for the Kiro team, guiding the architecting of agentic AI systems powering Amazon's GenAI coding assistant. You will define how multi-agent workflows are built, orchestrated, and scaled across distributed systems.

You will lead the technical direction, mentor engineers, and own performance and scalability where latency impacts developer productivity.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of professional software development experience.
• 12+ years of leading design or architecture of new and existing systems.

Responsibilities

• Designing and evolving the systems that orchestrate multi-step agentic workflows across multiple LLM models with low latency and high reliability.
• Driving integration strategy across model providers and internal science teams as the model landscape rapidly evolves.
• Defining agent orchestration architecture — designing patterns for multi-agent coordination, agent swarms, and tiered agent architectures.
• Building orchestration visibility systems — creating mechanisms that make agent behavior observable, debuggable, and controllable at scale.
• Solving context management at scale — architecting solutions for context sharing across agent swarms and multi-agent workflows.
• Owning performance and scalability for systems where latency directly impacts developer productivity.
• Setting the technical direction for a team that rapidly iterates on its architecture to stay at the frontier.
• Serving as the technical anchor for ambiguous, open-ended problems and influencing how agentic AI systems are built across Amazon.

Skills

Software development

Architecture

Mentorship

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent

Tools

Rust

Job description

Principal Engineers provide technical leadership at Amazon. They help establish technical standards and drive Amazon's overall technical architecture, engineering practices, and engineering methodologies. They work on our hardest problems, building high-quality, architecturally sound systems that are aligned with our business needs. They think globally when building systems, ensuring Amazon builds high-performing, scalable systems that fit well together. Principal Engineers are pragmatic visionaries who can translate business needs into workable technology solutions. Their expertise is deep and broad. They are hands on, producing both detailed technical work and high-level architectural designs.

On the Kiro team, this means leading the technical direction for agentic AI systems that power Kiro, Amazon's GenAI coding assistant. You'll work at the intersection of distributed systems and AI agent design, defining how multi-agent workflows are built, orchestrated, and scaled.

Key job responsibilities

• Designing and evolving the systems that orchestrate multi-step agentic workflows across multiple LLM models with low latency and high reliability
• Driving integration strategy across model providers and internal science teams as the model landscape rapidly evolves
• Defining agent orchestration architecture — designing patterns for multi-agent coordination, agent swarms, and tiered agent architectures
• Building orchestration visibility systems — creating mechanisms that make agent behavior observable, debuggable, and controllable at scale
• Solving context management at scale — architecting solutions for context sharing across agent swarms and multi-agent workflows
• Owning performance and scalability for systems where latency directly impacts developer productivity
• Setting the technical direction for a team that rapidly iterates on its architecture to stay at the frontier
• Serving as the technical anchor for ambiguous, open-ended problems and influencing how agentic AI systems are built across Amazon

Basic Qualifications

• 12+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
• 12+ 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

Preferred Qualifications

• 12+ 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 with AI/ML agent systems, multi-agent coordination, or workflow orchestration patterns
• Background in building observability, debugging, or monitoring systems for complex distributed workflows
• Track record of solving intrinsically hard problems in areas like context management, state coordination, optimization, network communication, autonomous system control
• Experience scaling platforms from individual users to team and enterprise deployments
• Contributions to open-source projects in agent frameworks, orchestration tools, or developer platforms
• Rust proficiency or experience with database internals / query engine / storage system design

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 - 200,100.00 - 270,600.00 USD annually