Overview
As a Software Development Engineer II at Amazon, you will design, build, and operate large-scale, high-availability systems that serve millions of customers. You own components and features end-to-end — from design through implementation, testing, deployment, and operations — and you raise the technical bar for your team through high-quality code, thoughtful design, and strong engineering practices. SDE IIs operate with significant autonomy on well-scoped problems and are trusted to deliver complex features with limited oversight.
Key job responsibilities
- Design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain scalable, secure, and reliable software systems and services.
- Own the delivery of medium-to-large features or components, breaking ambiguous problems into well-defined tasks and driving them to completion.
- Write high-quality, maintainable, well-tested code and clear technical documentation and design docs.
- Participate in and contribute to design and code reviews, improving quality and consistency across the team.
- Operate what you build: monitor service health, respond to operational events, participate in on-call, and drive down operational load through automation and root-cause fixes.
- Collaborate with product managers, other engineers, and partner teams to clarify requirements, define technical approaches, and manage cross-team dependencies.
- Improve engineering practices — CI/CD, testing, observability, performance, and security — and reduce technical debt.
- Mentor junior engineers (SDE I / interns) and contribute to a strong, inclusive team culture.
A day in the life
You start your morning reviewing a design document from a teammate, providing feedback that strengthens their approach. Mid-morning, you pair with engineers to resolve a tricky integration challenge between your service and a partner team's API. After lunch, you lead a technical discussion to evaluate trade-offs for an upcoming feature, then spend focused time writing code for a critical component where your expertise has the most impact. You wrap up by checking operational dashboards and ensuring your team's alarms and runbooks are up to date.
About the team
Our team builds software that directly impacts how customers experience Amazon. We operate in an environment where engineering excellence, collaboration, and pragmatic problem-solving define how we work together. We are focused on building reliable, scalable systems while investing in the growth of every engineer on the team. If you want to shape technical strategy, tackle meaningful challenges, and work alongside talented colleagues who value quality and inclusiveness, this is the place for you.
