What are the responsibilities and job description for the Principal and Senior Principal Engineer, AWS Compute and ML Services position at Amazon Web Services (AWS)?
Description
We are hiring Principal Engineers and Senior Principal Engineers to join AWS Compute and ML Services.
AWS Compute and ML Services is the compute layer the internet runs on. Millions of customers — from early-stage startups to the world's largest enterprises — depend on us every second of every day. The problems here involve a level of scale that is unique among many axes: we enable a wide variety of hardware platforms, support dozens of geographies worldwide, land a large number of new servers every day, power a vast marketplace of AI models, and meet the security and commerce needs of the most diverse customer base in cloud computing.
We don't build on top of infrastructure. We are the infrastructure.
AWS Compute and ML Services is entering its most ambitious era. AI workloads are demanding unprecedented scale, interconnect bandwidth, and placement intelligence. Confidential computing is raising the bar on what "secure by default" means at the hardware level — we're building toward a world where zero-trust isn't a feature, it's the architecture. Graviton is redefining the price-performance curve with every generation. And customers are pushing us to deliver bare-metal performance with full isolation, at global scale, with millisecond-level responsiveness.
We need engineers who can lead large teams to deliver what customers want in the AI era.
What Makes This Different
You won't be optimizing an existing system. You'll be deciding what the system is.
The Problems — How do you architect systems that serve more types of customers, across more hardware platforms, in more regions than anyone else — and make it feel seamless? How do you co-design silicon and software when the feedback loop is measured in years, not sprints? How do you build placement algorithms that simultaneously optimize availability, performance, cost, carbon, and constraints that haven't been invented yet? How do you enable an AI model marketplace that scales from a single inference call to a 10,000-GPU training cluster? How do you make security guarantees that hold at every layer — from custom silicon to the application boundary — without sacrificing performance?
The Constraints — Microseconds matter. Billions of dollars of customer workloads depend on your decisions. There's no "move fast and break things" when you are the thing everything else is built on. You'll navigate complex tradeoffs across performance, security, and cost while maintaining the highest standards for operational excellence.
The Reward — Your work ships to every AWS customer. Not eventually. Not behind a feature flag. The abstractions you design become the foundation other services assume will always be there. You'll serve as the technical conscience for one of AWS's most critical platforms — the one everything else depends on.
Key job responsibilities
At The Principal Engineer Level, You Will
Own the technical architecture and hands-on delivery of critical systems — whether that's compute platforms, ML infrastructure, serverless runtimes, security foundations, or custom silicon integration
Drive end-to-end system design decisions across the full stack, from hardware interfaces to customer-facing APIs, where latency, security, and reliability are non-negotiable
Lead cross-team initiatives spanning multiple AWS organizations to deliver cohesive systems, not disconnected components
Author and champion technical vision documents, influence product roadmaps, and represent AWS Compute and ML Services in executive-level architectural reviews
Make hard architectural calls at the hardware-software boundary where tradeoffs are permanent and impact is measured in billions of customer-hours
Mentor and develop senior engineers — raising the technical bar through design reviews, code reviews, and hands-on technical leadership
Establish and raise the operational bar: you build it, you own it, you make it better
At The Senior Principal Engineer Level, You Will Additionally
Set the long-term technical direction and multi-year engineering vision across AWS Compute and ML Services, influencing strategy at the VP and SVP level
Drive large-scale architectural transformations that span multiple product areas and organizations, defining technical standards that become the foundation for the broader AWS infrastructure
Serve as the technical conscience for the organization — making decisions that shape industry direction and influence how customers build on AWS for years to come
Partner with senior leadership to translate business and customer needs into durable technology investments, aligning technical strategy across compute, AI/ML, serverless, and silicon programs
Grow the Principal Engineering community — mentoring PEs, conducting promotion assessments, and shaping the culture of engineering excellence across thousands of builders
About The Team
AWS Compute and ML Services sits at the intersection of the most important trends in cloud computing — AI-scale infrastructure, hardware-software co-design, confidential computing, and sustainable operations. The organization encompasses:
EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) — the backbone of cloud compute
AI/ML Infrastructure & Services — including SageMaker, Bedrock, and the platforms that power generative AI at scale
Serverless Compute — event-driven and container-based compute that abstracts infrastructure entirely
AWS Platform Experience — the tools and interfaces that make it all accessible to customers
This is one of the largest and most technically ambitious engineering organizations at Amazon, with thousands of engineers across multiple pillars. You'll work alongside people who've built the systems the industry takes for granted — and who are now building what comes next.
We foster a collaborative, inclusive environment where diverse perspectives drive better solutions — and where the best ideas win regardless of where they originate. We ship fast and iterate with purpose, and we believe work should be meaningful. You'll join a team that takes pride in building the platform the rest of the cloud stands on.
Basic Qualifications
10 years of non-internship professional software development experience
Experience owning technical architecture, end-to-end delivery, and partnering with senior leadership
Track record of leading multiple concurrent technical initiatives and driving decisions that stuck
Experience influencing across organizational boundaries without positional authority
Preferred Qualifications
15–25 years of deep hands-on technical expertise in building complex distributed systems
Experience influencing VP/SVP-level technical and business strategy
Demonstrated ability to grow and develop Principal Engineers and senior technical talent
Experience with large-scale systems programming, virtualization, operating systems, or performance engineering
Familiarity with hardware-software co-design — you understand what happens below the abstraction, including firmware, PCI, kernels, and accelerator integration
History of shipping systems where latency, availability, and security are hard constraints, not goals
Experience solving customer and technical problems with durable, scalable solutions over multi-year, multi-billion dollar, and multi-organization impact
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 for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.
The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. 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. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.
USA, CA, Cupertino - 230,100.00 - 311,200.00 USD annually
USA, CA, Santa Clara - 230,100.00 - 311,200.00 USD annually
USA, NY, New York - 220,100.00 - 297,700.00 USD annually
USA, VA, Arlington - 200,100.00 - 270,600.00 USD annually
USA, VA, Herndon - 200,100.00 - 270,600.00 USD annually
USA, WA, Seattle - 200,100.00 - 270,600.00 USD annually
Company - Amazon.com Services LLC - A57
Job ID: A10566017
We are hiring Principal Engineers and Senior Principal Engineers to join AWS Compute and ML Services.
AWS Compute and ML Services is the compute layer the internet runs on. Millions of customers — from early-stage startups to the world's largest enterprises — depend on us every second of every day. The problems here involve a level of scale that is unique among many axes: we enable a wide variety of hardware platforms, support dozens of geographies worldwide, land a large number of new servers every day, power a vast marketplace of AI models, and meet the security and commerce needs of the most diverse customer base in cloud computing.
We don't build on top of infrastructure. We are the infrastructure.
AWS Compute and ML Services is entering its most ambitious era. AI workloads are demanding unprecedented scale, interconnect bandwidth, and placement intelligence. Confidential computing is raising the bar on what "secure by default" means at the hardware level — we're building toward a world where zero-trust isn't a feature, it's the architecture. Graviton is redefining the price-performance curve with every generation. And customers are pushing us to deliver bare-metal performance with full isolation, at global scale, with millisecond-level responsiveness.
We need engineers who can lead large teams to deliver what customers want in the AI era.
What Makes This Different
You won't be optimizing an existing system. You'll be deciding what the system is.
The Problems — How do you architect systems that serve more types of customers, across more hardware platforms, in more regions than anyone else — and make it feel seamless? How do you co-design silicon and software when the feedback loop is measured in years, not sprints? How do you build placement algorithms that simultaneously optimize availability, performance, cost, carbon, and constraints that haven't been invented yet? How do you enable an AI model marketplace that scales from a single inference call to a 10,000-GPU training cluster? How do you make security guarantees that hold at every layer — from custom silicon to the application boundary — without sacrificing performance?
The Constraints — Microseconds matter. Billions of dollars of customer workloads depend on your decisions. There's no "move fast and break things" when you are the thing everything else is built on. You'll navigate complex tradeoffs across performance, security, and cost while maintaining the highest standards for operational excellence.
The Reward — Your work ships to every AWS customer. Not eventually. Not behind a feature flag. The abstractions you design become the foundation other services assume will always be there. You'll serve as the technical conscience for one of AWS's most critical platforms — the one everything else depends on.
Key job responsibilities
At The Principal Engineer Level, You Will
Own the technical architecture and hands-on delivery of critical systems — whether that's compute platforms, ML infrastructure, serverless runtimes, security foundations, or custom silicon integration
Drive end-to-end system design decisions across the full stack, from hardware interfaces to customer-facing APIs, where latency, security, and reliability are non-negotiable
Lead cross-team initiatives spanning multiple AWS organizations to deliver cohesive systems, not disconnected components
Author and champion technical vision documents, influence product roadmaps, and represent AWS Compute and ML Services in executive-level architectural reviews
Make hard architectural calls at the hardware-software boundary where tradeoffs are permanent and impact is measured in billions of customer-hours
Mentor and develop senior engineers — raising the technical bar through design reviews, code reviews, and hands-on technical leadership
Establish and raise the operational bar: you build it, you own it, you make it better
At The Senior Principal Engineer Level, You Will Additionally
Set the long-term technical direction and multi-year engineering vision across AWS Compute and ML Services, influencing strategy at the VP and SVP level
Drive large-scale architectural transformations that span multiple product areas and organizations, defining technical standards that become the foundation for the broader AWS infrastructure
Serve as the technical conscience for the organization — making decisions that shape industry direction and influence how customers build on AWS for years to come
Partner with senior leadership to translate business and customer needs into durable technology investments, aligning technical strategy across compute, AI/ML, serverless, and silicon programs
Grow the Principal Engineering community — mentoring PEs, conducting promotion assessments, and shaping the culture of engineering excellence across thousands of builders
About The Team
AWS Compute and ML Services sits at the intersection of the most important trends in cloud computing — AI-scale infrastructure, hardware-software co-design, confidential computing, and sustainable operations. The organization encompasses:
EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) — the backbone of cloud compute
AI/ML Infrastructure & Services — including SageMaker, Bedrock, and the platforms that power generative AI at scale
Serverless Compute — event-driven and container-based compute that abstracts infrastructure entirely
AWS Platform Experience — the tools and interfaces that make it all accessible to customers
This is one of the largest and most technically ambitious engineering organizations at Amazon, with thousands of engineers across multiple pillars. You'll work alongside people who've built the systems the industry takes for granted — and who are now building what comes next.
We foster a collaborative, inclusive environment where diverse perspectives drive better solutions — and where the best ideas win regardless of where they originate. We ship fast and iterate with purpose, and we believe work should be meaningful. You'll join a team that takes pride in building the platform the rest of the cloud stands on.
Basic Qualifications
10 years of non-internship professional software development experience
Experience owning technical architecture, end-to-end delivery, and partnering with senior leadership
Track record of leading multiple concurrent technical initiatives and driving decisions that stuck
Experience influencing across organizational boundaries without positional authority
Preferred Qualifications
15–25 years of deep hands-on technical expertise in building complex distributed systems
Experience influencing VP/SVP-level technical and business strategy
Demonstrated ability to grow and develop Principal Engineers and senior technical talent
Experience with large-scale systems programming, virtualization, operating systems, or performance engineering
Familiarity with hardware-software co-design — you understand what happens below the abstraction, including firmware, PCI, kernels, and accelerator integration
History of shipping systems where latency, availability, and security are hard constraints, not goals
Experience solving customer and technical problems with durable, scalable solutions over multi-year, multi-billion dollar, and multi-organization impact
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 for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.
The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. 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. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.
USA, CA, Cupertino - 230,100.00 - 311,200.00 USD annually
USA, CA, Santa Clara - 230,100.00 - 311,200.00 USD annually
USA, NY, New York - 220,100.00 - 297,700.00 USD annually
USA, VA, Arlington - 200,100.00 - 270,600.00 USD annually
USA, VA, Herndon - 200,100.00 - 270,600.00 USD annually
USA, WA, Seattle - 200,100.00 - 270,600.00 USD annually
Company - Amazon.com Services LLC - A57
Job ID: A10566017