Software Development Engineer III, AWS Transactional Services (Database & Distributed Systems)

Amazon • Seattle, WA

1d • Onsite

About The Position

The Transactional Services organization at AWS builds foundational distributed systems that power the largest AWS services, specializing in high-performance, strongly consistent data systems that operate at scale, processing over 4 million writes per second. The team has a multi-year roadmap focused on building next-generation data export services, driving large-scale migrations to reshape Amazon's storage infrastructure, and pushing the boundaries of durability, availability, and performance in distributed log systems. This role is foundational, not incremental. As a Sr. SDE, you will be a technical leader on a team of 12 engineers, setting technical direction for critical services, driving cross-team architecture decisions, and owning the delivery of complex, ambiguous projects. You will partner with Principal Engineers and your engineering manager to define the roadmap and mentor SDE-I and SDE-II engineers.

Requirements

• 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

Nice To Haves

• 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

• Lead the design and architecture of highly available, low-latency distributed log and database systems that process millions of writes per second for AWS's most critical services.
• Own the team's most complex and ambiguous technical problems — define the approach, drive consensus, and deliver end-to-end from problem statement through production.
• Set technical direction across multiple foundational services, making architecture decisions that balance performance, durability, and operational simplicity.
• Lead multi-year, cross-team efforts with high-profile partner teams such as S3 — driving alignment, managing dependencies, and delivering results across organizational boundaries.
• Mentor and develop SDE-I and SDE-II engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and hands-on pairing — building the team's next generation of senior engineers.
• Raise the engineering bar by defining best practices, driving operational excellence, and shaping the team's technical culture.

Benefits

• 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
• parental leave

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior