Principal and Senior Principal Engineer, AWS Compute and ML Services

We are hiring Principal Engineers and Senior Principal Engineers to join AWS Compute and ML Services.

AWS Compute and ML Services is the compute layer the internet runs on. Millions of customers from early-stage startups to the worlds largest enterprises depend on us every second of every day. The problems here involve a level of scale that is unique among many axes: we enable a wide variety of hardware platforms support dozens of geographies worldwide land a large number of new servers every day power a vast marketplace of AI models and meet the security and commerce needs of the most diverse customer base in cloud computing.

We dont build on top of infrastructure. We are the infrastructure.

AWS Compute and ML Services is entering its most ambitious era. AI workloads are demanding unprecedented scale interconnect bandwidth and placement intelligence. Confidential computing is raising the bar on what secure by default means at the hardware level were building toward a world where zero-trust isnt a feature its the architecture. Graviton is redefining the price-performance curve with every generation. And customers are pushing us to deliver bare-metal performance with full isolation at global scale with millisecond-level responsiveness.

We need engineers who can lead large teams to deliver what customers want in the AI era.

What Makes This Different:

You wont be optimizing an existing system. Youll be deciding what the system is.

The Problems How do you architect systems that serve more types of customers across more hardware platforms in more regions than anyone else and make it feel seamless How do you co-design silicon and software when the feedback loop is measured in years not sprints How do you build placement algorithms that simultaneously optimize availability performance cost carbon and constraints that havent been invented yet How do you enable an AI model marketplace that scales from a single inference call to a 10000-GPU training cluster How do you make security guarantees that hold at every layer from custom silicon to the application boundary without sacrificing performance

The Constraints Microseconds matter. Billions of dollars of customer workloads depend on your decisions. Theres no move fast and break things when you are the thing everything else is built on. Youll navigate complex tradeoffs across performance security and cost while maintaining the highest standards for operational excellence.

The Reward Your work ships to every AWS customer. Not eventually. Not behind a feature flag. The abstractions you design become the foundation other services assume will always be there. Youll serve as the technical conscience for one of AWSs most critical platforms the one everything else depends on.

Key job responsibilities
At the Principal Engineer level you will:

Own the technical architecture and hands-on delivery of critical systems whether thats compute platforms ML infrastructure serverless runtimes security foundations or custom silicon integration

Drive end-to-end system design decisions across the full stack from hardware interfaces to customer-facing APIs where latency security and reliability are non-negotiable

Lead cross-team initiatives spanning multiple AWS organizations to deliver cohesive systems not disconnected components

Author and champion technical vision documents influence product roadmaps and represent AWS Compute and ML Services in executive-level architectural reviews

Make hard architectural calls at the hardware-software boundary where tradeoffs are permanent and impact is measured in billions of customer-hours

Mentor and develop senior engineers raising the technical bar through design reviews code reviews and hands-on technical leadership

Establish and raise the operational bar: you build it you own it you make it better

At the Senior Principal Engineer level you will additionally:

Set the long-term technical direction and multi-year engineering vision across AWS Compute and ML Services influencing strategy at the VP and SVP level

Drive large-scale architectural transformations that span multiple product areas and organizations defining technical standards that become the foundation for the broader AWS infrastructure

Serve as the technical conscience for the organization making decisions that shape industry direction and influence how customers build on AWS for years to come

Partner with senior leadership to translate business and customer needs into durable technology investments aligning technical strategy across compute AI/ML serverless and silicon programs

Grow the Principal Engineering community mentoring PEs conducting promotion assessments and shaping the culture of engineering excellence across thousands of builders

About the team
AWS Compute and ML Services sits at the intersection of the most important trends in cloud computing AI-scale infrastructure hardware-software co-design confidential computing and sustainable operations. The organization encompasses:

EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) the backbone of cloud compute

AI/ML Infrastructure & Services including SageMaker Bedrock and the platforms that power generative AI at scale

Serverless Compute event-driven and container-based compute that abstracts infrastructure entirely

AWS Platform Experience the tools and interfaces that make it all accessible to customers

This is one of the largest and most technically ambitious engineering organizations at Amazon with thousands of engineers across multiple pillars. Youll work alongside people whove built the systems the industry takes for granted and who are now building what comes next.

We foster a collaborative inclusive environment where diverse perspectives drive better solutions and where the best ideas win regardless of where they originate. We ship fast and iterate with purpose and we believe work should be meaningful. Youll join a team that takes pride in building the platform the rest of the cloud stands on.

10 years of non-internship professional software development experience

Experience owning technical architecture end-to-end delivery and partnering with senior leadership

Track record of leading multiple concurrent technical initiatives and driving decisions that stuck

Experience influencing across organizational boundaries without positional authority


1525 years of deep hands-on technical expertise in building complex distributed systems

Experience influencing VP/SVP-level technical and business strategy

Demonstrated ability to grow and develop Principal Engineers and senior technical talent

Experience with large-scale systems programming virtualization operating systems or performance engineering

Familiarity with hardware-software co-design you understand what happens below the abstraction including firmware PCI kernels and accelerator integration

History of shipping systems where latency availability and security are hard constraints not goals

Experience solving customer and technical problems with durable scalable solutions over multi-year multi-billion dollar and multi-organization impact


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: 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 Companys 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 youre applying in isnt 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 CA Cupertino - 230100.00 - 311200.00 USD annually
USA CA Santa Clara - 230100.00 - 311200.00 USD annually
USA NY New York - 220100.00 - 297700.00 USD annually
USA VA Arlington - 200100.00 - 270600.00 USD annually
USA VA Herndon - 200100.00 - 270600.00 USD annually
USA WA Seattle - 200100.00 - 270600.00 USD annually