Senior Software Development Engineer, EC2 VPC (AWS)

Amazon; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 168,100 - 227,400; Full time

Job summary

Amazon seeks a Senior Software Development Engineer for EC2 VPC in San Diego. The role focuses on kernel/embedded C to enable ultra high‑performance packet processing for the EC2 VPC platform.

You will mentor a small team, influence architecture, and work with cross‑functional partners to design, implement, and review features touching every packet on every host in a massive cloud environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of non‑internship professional software development experience.
• 5+ years of programming in C/C++ or similar languages.
• 5+ years of leading design or architecture of new and existing systems.
• Experience mentoring, tech lead, or leading an engineering team.

Responsibilities

• Lead engineer on a small team, mentoring junior engineers and ensuring proper development practices.
• Hands‑on work with engineering to manage day‑to‑day development activities, including architecture decisions, designs, design review, code review, and implementation.
• Maintain current technical knowledge to support rapidly changing technology and actively explore new technologies.
• Communicate with users, other technical teams, and senior management to collect requirements, describe software product features, technical designs, and product strategy.

Skills

C/C++ programming

Kernel/embedded engineering

Leadership / mentoring

System design

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent

Tools

Git

Linux

Python

Ruby

Job description

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 process millions of packets per second on a CPU core. This requires highly optimized data structures and low‑level tuning, including hand assembly and vectorization. If you have good experience in C/C++ and a passion for systems software engineering such as kernel or embedded development, this is a unique opportunity to join us at day one of building the platform that is the basis for all new EC2 VPC features in the years to come.

Responsibilities

• Lead engineer on a small team, mentoring junior engineers and ensuring proper development practices.
• Hands‑on work with engineering team to manage day‑to‑day development activities, including architecture decisions, designs, design review, code review, and implementation.
• Maintain current technical knowledge to support rapidly changing technology and actively explore new technologies.
• Communicate with users, other technical teams, and senior management to collect requirements, describe software product features, technical designs, and product strategy.

About the Team

Our team values work‑life balance and supports new team members. We celebrate knowledge sharing and career growth, assigning projects and tasks that help develop well‑rounded engineers.

Basic Qualifications

• 5+ years of non‑internship professional software development experience.
• 5+ years of programming 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+ years of leading a team in architecture, mentoring, and promoting best software development practices.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent.
• Experience developing in C or C++.

Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years of 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.
• Kernel or embedded development, particularly Linux kernel.
• Experience influencing software engineering best practices within a team.
• Proficiency in scripting languages such as Ruby or Python.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

Compensation & Benefits

The base salary range for this position is USD 168,100.00 – 227,400.00 per year. Your Amazon package will include sign‑on payments and restricted stock units. We also offer comprehensive benefits including health insurance, vision, dental, prescription, basic life & AD&D insurance, mental health support, flexible spending accounts, parental leave and more.