An application made for this job — a tailored resume and cover letter that speak straight to the posting.
Amazon GuardDuty is seeking talented Software Development Engineers to join a team in our Los Angeles area. You will design, build, and operate highly available, scalable distributed systems powering GuardDuty’s Malware Protection and Runtime Monitoring products, protecting millions of AWS customers.
You will collaborate with security engineers, applied scientists, and product managers to deliver impactful features, mentor teammates, and participate in on‑call rotations.
Santa Monica, California, US
Full-time $0-194.4K
AWS security distributed systems Python/Java/C++ ML/anomaly detection (nice)
Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously monitors, analyzes, and processes AWS data sources and logs to identify unexpected, potentially unauthorized, and malicious activity within customer AWS environments. GuardDuty combines machine learning, anomaly detection, and malicious file discovery, using both AWS and third-party sources to help protect workloads and data across AWS accounts. Amazon GuardDuty is seeking talented Software Development Engineers to join a team in our Los Angeles office! In this role, you will design, build, and operate highly available, scalable distributed systems that power GuardDuty‘s Malware protection and Runtime Monitoring products. You will work on challenging problems at the intersection of cloud security, distributed systems, and customer experience — building platforms that serve both internal teams and millions of external AWS customers. You will be a hands‑on engineer contributing to the full software development lifecycle — from requirements gathering and system design through implementation, testing, deployment, and operations. You will collaborate closely with security engineers, applied scientists, and product managers to deliver features that protect millions of AWS customers. This is a high-impact role where your work directly contributes to the security posture of AWS customers worldwide.
As an SDE II on this team, you spend your time designing, building, and operating distributed systems that protect AWS customers from runtime threats at massive scale. On any given day, you might be drafting a design document for a new feature, diving deep into code, reviewing a teammate‘s pull request, or debugging a production issue - using AI tooling along the way to move faster without cutting corners on quality. You collaborate with security engineers, applied scientists, and product managers to understand their needs and build the right solutions. You participate in operational reviews, contribute to sprint planning, and mentor teammates as part of how the team operates. The work is varied, fast‑paced, and high‑impact - every line of code you ship helps protect AWS customers.
Our team owns two of GuardDuty‘s core threat detection products: Malware Protection, which scans EC2 workloads, S3 objects for malicious files and supporting AWS Backup and Runtime Monitoring, which uses an eBPF agent to detect threats in real time across EC2, ECS, Fargate, and EKS.
We work at the intersection of security research, distributed systems, and operating system internals - protecting AWS customers from the threats that target their compute and data.
Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. 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 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 .
USA, CA, Santa Monica - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually