Sr. SDE, Amazon Email Services

Description

We are looking for a seasoned Senior Software Development Engineer to join our Email Infrastructure & Platform Engineering team. In this role, you will be a technical leader driving the design, development, and evolution of large-scale distributed systems that power Amazon's global email infrastructure. You will work at the intersection of email services, AI-powered automation, and platform reliability — contributing to one of Amazon's most critical internal infrastructure transformation initiatives.

You will collaborate with cross-functional teams across Email Platform, Security, IT Services, and AI/ML to deliver systems that are secure, scalable, and operationally excellent.

Key job responsibilities
Lead the design and development of highly available, fault-tolerant distributed systems supporting Amazon's email routing, email distribution management, and email security infrastructure

Drive technical strategy and architecture decisions for large-scale service migrations and deprecations (e.g., legacy email systems to modern, API-driven platforms)

Build and integrate AI-powered tooling and workflows to improve operational efficiency, including on-call automation, anomaly detection, and intelligent routing

Develop and maintain robust APIs and libraries consumed by internal teams, ensuring reliability, observability, and ease of use

Partner with Security, Compliance, and Platform teams to implement perimeter security re-architecture for inbound and outbound email flows

Define and enforce engineering best practices including spec-driven development, code quality standards, and operational excellence

Mentor and grow junior engineers, providing technical guidance, code reviews, and career development support

Contribute to org-wide technical roadmaps and represent the team in cross-organizational design reviews and planning

A day in the life
As an Sr. SDE on the AmazES Intelligence and Routing team, no two days look exactly the same — but every day is grounded in high-impact engineering work that keeps Amazon's corporate email infrastructure running securely and intelligently for over 1 million Amazonians.

You spend a meaningful portion of your time designing and building — writing production code, authoring technical specs, and making architectural decisions across our distributed email routing and API services. You invest equally in cross-team collaboration, partnering with Amazon Security, IT Services, and AI teams to align on direction, resolve ambiguity, and drive complex initiatives forward. A significant part of your role is operational ownership — you care deeply about the health of the systems you build, improving observability, responding to incidents with rigor, and raising the reliability bar over time. And you consistently make time for people and culture — mentoring junior engineers, championing spec-driven development, and helping shape a team environment that attracts and retains engineers who want to do the best work of their careers.

About the team
AmazES Intelligence and Routing owns the intelligence and routing layer of Amazon's corporate email platform — the systems that classify, secure, and deliver email reliably at Amazon scale. We build and operate Farcaster, SEAL, BEAR, ELMO and many others working at the intersection of distributed infrastructure, email security, and applied AI. We value technical depth, spec-driven development, and operational excellence — and we're transforming email into an intelligent, programmable platform for 1M+ Amazonians.

If you're excited about building systems that matter, working on hard problems at Amazon scale, and growing in an environment that rewards both technical excellence and customer obsession, we'd love to hear from you.

Basic Qualifications

- Experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team
- Experience leading the architecture and design (architecture, design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and current systems
- Experience designing, building, operating, and managing large-scale distributed systems or web services
- Knowledge of concepts like system architecture, optimization, system dynamics, system analysis, statistical analysis, reliability analysis, and decision making
- Experience with AWS services or other cloud offerings
- Proficiency in one or more of: Java, Python, Go, or C++

Preferred Qualifications

- Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent
- Experience with full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations
- Experience working with or evaluating AI systems
- Knowledge of security practices like spam and phishing
- Experience implementing cloud services including migrations and modernization projects or similar
- Experience working across teams and influencing teams that are not your own
- Experience in operational excellence, security compliance, and distributed systems resiliency
- Experience with email protocols and infrastructure (SMTP, DKIM, SPF, DMARC, MTA configuration, email routing)

Amazon is an equal opportunities employer. We believe passionately that employing a diverse workforce is central to our success. We make recruiting decisions based on your experience and skills. We value your passion to discover, invent, simplify and build. Protecting your privacy and the security of your data is a longstanding top priority for Amazon. Please consult our Privacy Notice (https://www.amazon.jobs/en/privacy_page) to know more about how we collect, use and transfer the personal data of our candidates.

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

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 for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.