Amazon Prime Air is seeking a Sr. Systems Development Engineer to serve as our internal DO-178C Designated Engineering Representative (DER) and certification process authority for the Drone Guidance, Navigation & Controls (GNC) software team. This is an individual contributor role with organization-wide impact — you will define the certification strategy, build the DO-178C processes from the ground up, and serve as the primary technical interface with the FAA and DERs for all software certification activities.
This role is uniquely dual-natured: you must be a seasoned software developer with hands-on embedded systems experience and a recognized expert in DO-178C certification processes. You will own the certification lifecycle end-to-end — from establishing the Software Planning and Assurance processes that satisfy SOI-1 through executing and leading SOI-2, SOI-3, SOI-4, and Conformity Audits.
Your impact extends across all Software teams. You will define standards of engineering and certification excellence at the organization level, influence Prime Air's broader airworthiness strategy, and guide the career growth of senior technical talent across the program.
Key job responsibilities
• Own DO-178C certification strategy for Prime Air software (specifically at DAL C and DAL D), defining the end-to-end software lifecycle approach from planning through Software Accomplishment Summary (SAS) and final certification
• Develop and establish DO-178C processes that satisfy all planning objectives required for SOI-1, including authoring and owning the Plan for Software Aspects of Certification (PSAC), Software Development Plan (SDP), Software Verification Plan (SVP), Software Configuration Management Plan (SCMP), and Software Quality Assurance Plan (SQAP)
• Lead all four Stages of Involvement (SOI) audits — SOI-1 (Planning), SOI-2 (Development), SOI-3 (Verification/Test), and SOI-4 (Final), serving as the primary technical representative to the FAA or DER during each stage
• Serve as Auditor for software certification activities, making findings of compliance based on regulatory objectives laid out for Drone certification.
• Define and enforce process rigor based on the DAL across the software lifecycle, ensuring the correct number of objectives and independence requirements are satisfied for each DAL level per DO-178C
• Establish software structural coverage standards, defining tooling, automation, and reporting processes that demonstrate compliance to certification authorities.
• Build and maintain requirements traceability infrastructure from system-level requirements through HLRs, LLRs, source code, and test cases using tools such as Jama, ensuring bidirectional traceability satisfies DO-178C objectives
• Define tool qualification strategy under DO-330 for all software development and verification tools used in the DO-178C lifecycle, including qualification level determination and Tool Qualification Plans (TQPs)
• Mentor and develop senior engineers in DO-178C processes, certification audit preparation, and safety-critical software development practices, guiding their career growth toward certification expertise
• Influence organization-level technical strategy for airworthiness, certification, and safety-critical software development across Amazon Prime Air, producing exemplary written artifacts that create alignment with technical and non-technical audiences at the VP level
• Proactively identify and resolve certification risks across the software lifecycle, escalating to leadership with clear mitigation plans and communicating certification status clearly to senior leadership and the FAA
