Sr. Software Engineer, EC2 VPC (AWS)

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

Job summary

Amazon Web Services, Inc. is seeking a senior systems engineer to help shape the future of virtualized networking across EC2/SDN platforms. You will lead a small team, contribute hands‑on to design and code, and drive performance optimizations for millions of packets per second on real hardware.

The role requires strong C/C++ skills, embedded/driver experience, and leadership capabilities to guide architecture decisions and mentor engineers across a broad, globally distributed fleet.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of non-internship software development experience.
• Experience writing low level drivers or embedded development in C/C++.

Responsibilities

• Lead engineer on a small team and mentor junior engineers.
• Hands‑on development and architecture decisions with the engineering team.
• Stay updated with new technologies and drive adoption with management and team.
• Communicate requirements, designs, and product strategy to users, teams and senior management.

Skills

C/C++ programming

Low‑level driver development

Embedded systems

Leadership/mentoring

System design/architecture

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Job description

Job Overview

Job ID: 10382945 | Amazon Web Services, Inc.

Do you want to shape the future of virtualized networking in one of the world's largest public clouds? The Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) NX Platforms team owns the packet processing pipeline running beneath every EC2 instance — adding encryption, firewalls (security groups), routing, billing, and monitoring to each packet on every host across our worldwide fleet of 9M+ hosts in more than 30 regions. Our vision: deliver bare-metal networking performance while raising the bar on EC2's security, availability, and reliability — unlocking capabilities only possible through true Software Defined Networking (SDN). We are growing fast and looking for senior systems engineers who can deliver ultra-high performance — our goal is processing millions of packets per second on a single CPU core. This demands highly optimized data structures, low‑level hardware tuning, and expertise in C/C++. If you have a passion for systems software engineering — kernel development, embedded systems, or high-performance networking — this is a unique opportunity to define the next generation of the platform powering all new EC2 instance families and VPC features for years to come. Your code ships to production across the entire EC2 fleet — powering services like AWS Lambda and every external workload running on EC2. With frequent deployments and full ownership from design through operation, your contributions have immediate, measurable impact at global scale. With an extensive network and access to Principal, Sr. Principal, and Distinguished Engineers across EC2, AWS, and Amazon, there are many stretch opportunities to grow your skills and knowledge.

Key Responsibilities

• Be the lead engineer on a small team, mentoring junior engineers, ensuring the right development practices are followed.
• Be very hands‑on; work with the engineering team to manage day‑to‑day development activities by leading architecture decisions, participating in designs, design review, code review, and implementation.
• Maintain current technical knowledge to support rapidly changing technology, always stay on a lookout for new technologies and work with management and development team in bringing new technologies.
• Communicate with users, other technical teams, and senior management to collect requirements, describe software product features, technical designs, and product strategy.

A Day in the Life

Our team puts a high value on work‑life harmony. Striking a healthy balance between your personal and professional life is crucial to your happiness and success here.

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 (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems
• Experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team
• Experience writing low level drivers, or experience in embedded development in C/C++

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
• 4+ years of highly scalable systems experience
• Experience with embedded systems

Location and Compensation

USA, CA, San Diego – 168,100.00 – 227,400.00 USD annually.

EEO Statement

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status. Los Angeles County applicants may be required to adhere to local law regarding safety and conduct. 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.