Software Development Engineer III, AZA (Gen AI)

Amazon; Bellevue (WA); On-site; USD 168,000 - 227,000; Full time

Job summary

Amazon is seeking an SDE-II to build AI-native systems from the ground up. You will design and implement agentic architectures, orchestration, and a plugin ecosystem across 60+ sub-agents, delivering greenfield Gen AI features and scalable, low-latency services.

Join a fast-shipping, high-impact team with mentorship from senior engineers, owning end-to-end features in production while ensuring correctness across pay, benefits, and HR domains.

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.
• 5+ 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.

Responsibilities

• Design and build agentic systems: orchestration, skills, sub-agents, MCP tools, evaluation frameworks.
• Ship features end-to-end from design through production deployment.
• Work across the stack: LLM integration, distributed systems, real-time APIs, infrastructure-as-code.
• Collaborate with Sr. PE, PEs and Sr. engineers on architecture decisions that shape the platform's future.

Skills

Software development experience

Programming languages

Design/architecture leadership

Mentor/tech lead

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science

Job description

Aza is Amazon's primary internal AI assistant, serving 1.5M+ employees globally across HR, IT, pay, benefits, and workplace domains. We're not wrapping an LLM with a chat UI — we're building a full-stack agentic platform: 60+ production sub-agents, multi-turn orchestration, real-time skill routing, MCP-based tool integrations, and enterprise-grade evaluation systems.

We're looking for an SDE-II who wants to build AI-native systems from the ground up.

What makes this role unique:

• You'll build the agent, not just use one. Aza 2.0 is built on Strands SDK with dedicated ECS Fargate compute, custom orchestration, and a plugin architecture spanning 60+ sub-agents. You'll own real components of this system.
• Greenfield Gen AI engineering. We're actively shipping: agentic inline workflows, voice-enabled agents, RAG pipelines, progressive skill loading, and a self-service developer platform for 50+ away teams building on Aza.
• Complex, high-stakes domain. Aza handles questions about pay, benefits, leave, HR policies — across every jurisdiction Amazon operates in. Correctness matters. This is where AI reasoning meets real-world constraints.
• Scale that doesn't exist elsewhere. Millions of conversations monthly. Sub-3-second response latency. Production reliability with Sr. PE-level architectural standards.
• Visibility and mentorship. SVP-level visibility, Sr. PE driving architectural vision, and a fast-shipping team where engineers own end-to-end features in production.

Key job responsibilities

1. Design and build agentic systems: orchestration, skills, sub-agents, MCP tools, evaluation frameworks
2. Ship features end-to-end from design through production deployment
3. Work across the stack: LLM integration, distributed systems, real-time APIs, infrastructure-as-code
4. Collaborate with Sr. PE, PEs and Sr. engineers on architecture decisions that shape the platform's future

Basic Qualifications

• 5+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
• 5+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience
• 5+ 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

• 5+ 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

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, Bellevue - 168,100.00 - 227,400.00 USD annually