System Architect, Hardware Architecture

Amazon • Sunnyvale, CA

1d • Onsite

About The Position

The Amazon Devices team designs high-profile consumer electronics, including the best-selling Amazon Echo, FireTV, Fire Tablets, Kindle, and Astro family of products. We are looking for a motivated individual contributor with a solid hardware or silicon background, great communication skills, and the passion to collaborate with a cross-functional team to drive system architecture across Amazon devices.

As a System Architect, you will be responsible for defining the system architecture for consumer products such as Echo, FireTV and a range of new concepts not yet announced. You will serve as the lead technical point of contact that the product management and business teams rely on to interpret and clarify the product concept's desired user experience and requirements. You will define system architecture that can meet product requirements and work closely with the business team to understand and clarify requirements and user experience tradeoffs. In the process of architecture definition, you will drive key design decisions such as edge-cloud compute partition, device SoC selection, compute architecture (CPU, DSP, GPU and ML accelerators), and other system component selections (chipsets, memory, storage). You will document the decisions in a system architecture specification document that will provide relevant design guidance for the engineering team.

Besides directly defining product architectures, you will track market trends, interface directly with silicon and IP vendors, and define roadmaps for the whole organization on the next generation compute IP and silicon platforms. You will dive deep into silicon design, define specs for the next-gen silicon platforms and work with our silicon suppliers to implement them. You will work on concepts that may have an existing reference architecture as well as emerging product ideas that do not have any precedence. As the product is developed from the initial concept, prototype development, validation, to production you will stay engaged as the system technical lead to ensure the product requirements are being met. Throughout this process you work closely with multi-disciplinary product team including Program Management, Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering, ML Science, Product Design, Industrial Design, Reliability, and Operations.

You are a hands-on engineer who is close to the details and validates your architecture assumptions through profiling and benchmarking. You have sufficient breadth across system domains to be able to independently lead a cross-functional group to drive architecture decisions. Besides breadth, you also typically bring depth in one or more areas of expertise to the architecture team, such as computer architecture, SoC architecture, silicon design, graphics and multimedia, embedded Linux, video encoders/decoders, applied machine learning, ML accelerators, audio, wireless, sensors, power management, system performance benchmarking, etc. As part of technology development, you contribute towards developing IP and filing patents.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related fields
• 5+ years of industry experience or PhD in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related fields.
• Background or education in SoC/Silicon engineering, computer architecture, machine learning or embedded software
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, ability to clearly document and present technical designs

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree in Electrical or Communications Engineering or a related field
• Strong understanding of heterogenous SoC architectures
• Experience in driving architecture and design decisions for consumer electronics devices
• Expertise in one or more of the following areas: computer architecture, SoC architecture, silicon design, graphics and multimedia, embedded Linux, video encoders/decoders, applied machine learning, ML accelerators, audio, wireless, sensors, power management, system performance benchmarking, etc.
• Hands-on skills in either embedded systems, system performance evaluation, hardware development, or silicon development.

Responsibilities

• Defining the system architecture for consumer products such as Echo, FireTV and a range of new concepts.
• Serving as the lead technical point of contact for product management and business teams to interpret and clarify product concept's desired user experience and requirements.
• Defining system architecture that can meet product requirements.
• Working closely with the business team to understand and clarify requirements and user experience tradeoffs.
• Driving key design decisions such as edge-cloud compute partition, device SoC selection, compute architecture (CPU, DSP, GPU and ML accelerators), and other system component selections (chipsets, memory, storage).
• Documenting decisions in a system architecture specification document.
• Tracking market trends, interfacing directly with silicon and IP vendors, and defining roadmaps for the organization on the next generation compute IP and silicon platforms.
• Diving deep into silicon design, defining specs for the next-gen silicon platforms and working with silicon suppliers to implement them.
• Staying engaged as the system technical lead throughout the product development lifecycle from initial concept, prototype development, validation, to production to ensure product requirements are met.
• Working closely with multi-disciplinary product teams including Program Management, Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering, ML Science, Product Design, Industrial Design, Reliability, and Operations.
• Gathering business and functional product requirements from external/internal customers, and translating these requirements into technical specifications and architectures that are robust, scalable and supportable.
• Performing architecture feasibility analysis, including profiling, benchmarking and prototyping new features on available silicon platforms.
• Presenting architecture tradeoffs and recommendations to senior management.
• Collaborating with cross-functional teams to develop and document architecture specifications.
• Serving as a technical lead throughout the full development lifecycle, end-to-end, from scoping, planning, conception, design, implementation and testing, to delivery and maintenance.
• Providing design and validation reviews for other engineers, including feedback on architecture and design issues, as well as integration, performance and scalability.
• Driving technology roadmaps in areas of expertise to foster innovation and meet the needs of the long-term product roadmap.
• Working closely with silicon and component suppliers and influencing their roadmaps to meet Amazon Lab126 needs.

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