Sr. Software Dev Engineer, Redshift Distributed Systems

Amazon • East Palo Alto, CA

2d

About The Position

Are you interested in building next-generation hyper-scale distributed systems
in the cloud? Amazon Redshift is a rapidly growing, fast, and powerful fully
managed petabyte-scale data warehouse service in the cloud. Tens of thousands of
customers rely on Redshift to analyze exabytes of data every day to power their
most critical analytics workloads.

Join the Amazon Redshift Data Foundation team to solve some of the most
challenging problems in petabyte-scale distributed data systems. Our team owns
the critical foundation that underpins Redshift's storage, metadata, durability,
and reliability guarantees — the cornerstone on which every query, every table,
and every customer workload depends. You will dive deep into complex
interactions within the Redshift engine, tackling large-scale, high-complexity
problems that span data storage architecture, durability mechanisms, and
performance optimization at massive scale. We're looking for an engineer with a
strong understanding of distributed systems, storage internals, and the
curiosity to ask the right questions as we build a best-in-class cloud analytics
database engine. You will design and deliver features that keep Redshift at the
forefront of cloud analytics — ensuring data is always safe, always accessible,
and always fast.

Our team owns the foundational data systems that keep Amazon Redshift running
reliably and performantly at petabyte scale. We build and maintain the critical
storage, metadata, and catalog infrastructure that manages every table, schema,
permission, and byte of customer data across the fleet. Our work spans storage
architecture and data organization, in-memory scaling and caching, data
durability and recovery mechanisms, and multi-warehouse metadata consistency. We
tackle large-scale, high-complexity problems that sit at the intersection of
distributed systems, database internals, and cloud infrastructure. We value
operational excellence: automating away toil, building deep observability, and
resolving complex customer issues.

AWS values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the preferred
qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates
to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.

Why AWS? Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly
adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped
innovating — that’s why customers from the most successful startups to Global
500 companies trust our robust suite of products and services to power their
businesses.

Inclusive Team Culture Here at AWS, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious.
Our employee-led affinity groups foster a culture of inclusion that empower us
to be proud of our differences. Ongoing events and learning experiences,
including our Conversations on Race and Ethnicity (CORE) and AmazeCon
conferences, inspire us to never stop embracing our uniqueness.

Mentorship & Career Growth We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we
strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless
knowledge-sharing, mentorship and other career-advancing resources here to help
you develop into a better-rounded professional.

Work/Life Balance We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should
never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why we strive for
flexibility as part of our working culture. When we feel supported in the
workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve in the cloud.

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 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
https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations
[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.

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

• Innovate system architectures that address scalability, reliability, and performance for large-scale distributed systems
• Design and develop core storage, metadata, and catalog subsystems that operate reliably at petabyte scale
• Solve large-scale, high-complexity problems spanning data durability, availability, consistency, and performance
• Debug deep, cross-cutting issues that require understanding the full stack — from query planning to distributed storage to on-disk data formats
• Drive performance improvements in storage I/O paths, metadata access patterns, in-memory caching, and catalog operations
• Improve reliability and durability guarantees through resilient system design, automated recovery, and defensive engineering
• Mentor and grow junior engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and technical guidance
• Raise the bar on operational excellence by building deep observability, reducing operational toil, and strengthening the team's ability to resolve complex customer-impacting issues

Benefits

• Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs).
• 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.

What This Job Offers

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