{"id":4100692,"url":"https://alion.io/job/amazon-principal-software-engineer-aws-distributed-sql","title":"Principal Software Engineer, AWS Distributed SQL","company":{"id":19,"name":"Amazon","domain":"amazon.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/amazon","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Career site","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":78,"open_postings":4525,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.887,"repost_share":0.003,"time_to_fill_p50_days":30,"computed_at":"2026-11-11T05:49:22Z"}},"role":"Data Science","role_family":"Data Science","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Seattle, United States","New York, United States","Palo Alto, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":230100,"max":311200,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":311200},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"Amazon Aurora","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon Redshift","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Databricks","optional":false},{"name":"Google BigQuery","optional":false},{"name":"Java","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"Snowflake","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-11T21:39:47Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-11","last_verified_at":"2026-11-11T21:39:47Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"AWS Databases is hiring Principal/Sr Principal Engineers to lead query processing for two of its key database engines. Amazon Redshift is a petabyte-scale cloud data warehouse used by tens of thousands of customers. Amazon Aurora DSQL is a serverless, distributed SQL database built for active-active availability and virtually unlimited scale. Both engines depend on the same discipline: turning SQL into well-optimized plans and running them fast at massive scale. Depending on your depth and interests, you'll join one of three teams: Redshift Query Optimization, the Redshift Execution Engine, or Aurora DSQL Query Processing.\nKey job responsibilities\n- Set and execute a multi-year technical strategy for query optimization and execution that improves price-performance against Databricks, Snowflake, Google BigQuery, and other cloud databases.\n- Own core query processing architecture, including parsing and semantic analysis, query rewriting, cost-based planning, statistics and cardinality estimation, plan caching, and physical execution.\n- Build high-performance execution engines (vectorized and pipelined operators, memory management, code generation, massively parallel and distributed execution) that serve analytical and transactional workloads.\n- Advance optimization over open table formats and heterogeneous storage, such as Iceberg and Parquet data lakes and federated sources. Build adaptive execution that corrects plans at runtime.\n- Turn ambiguous customer and business requirements into concrete projects, and personally own design, code, deployment, and operations from end to end.\n- Partner across AWS Databases on product vision and integration with the broader database portfolio. Work directly with customers on adoption and roadmap.\n- Raise the engineering bar through design reviews, coding standards, and operational excellence. Mentor senior engineers, and help hire and grow a strong team.\nBasic qualifications\n- 10+ years of non-internship professional software development experience\n- 10+ years of leading design or architecture (design patterns, reliability, and scaling) of new and existing systems\n- Deep experience in database internals or query processing (query optimization, execution engines, or both) and in distributed systems\n- Proficiency in C++, Rust, Java, or a similar systems language, building and operating mission-critical, highly available systems\n- Experience as a technical leader driving strategy and complex, high-impact projects across organizational boundaries\n- Experience mentoring engineers or leading engineering teams\nPreferred qualifications\n- Masters or PhD in databases, distributed systems, or a closely related field\n- Expert knowledge of optimizer frameworks: cost-based optimization, join enumeration, plan-space exploration, rewrite rules, cardinality estimation, and statistics (histograms, sampling, feedback-driven re-optimization)\n- Expert knowledge of execution engines: vectorized execution, operator pipelines, memory management, and code generation\n- Deep understanding of the PostgreSQL query engine\n- Experience optimizing queries over data lake formats (Iceberg, Parquet, Hudi) and federated sources\n- Publications or active involvement in the database research community (SIGMOD, VLDB)\nAmazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.\nLos 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.\nOur 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.\nThe 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.\nUSA, CA, East Palo Alto - 230,100.00 - 311,200.00 USD annually\nUSA, NY, New York - 220,100.00 - 297,700.00 USD annually\nUSA, WA, Seattle - 200,100.00 - 270,600.00 USD annually","description_format":"text","description_chars":5718,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":10,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"master","optional":true},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Health insurance","Parental leave","Restricted stock units"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Advertising","Cloud Platforms (IaaS & PaaS)","Logistics","Streaming & OTT Platforms"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-11T21:39:47Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":0,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 23,961 · green card filings: 81","filings_12m":23961,"filings_prev_12m":24161,"green_card_filings_12m":81,"median_offered_wage_usd":161211,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-11T07:38:50+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green cards)"],"filings_for_role_12m":2251}],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":31,"reasons":["conf:1","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-11T23:01:07Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":311200,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/amazon-principal-software-engineer-aws-distributed-sql","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/amazon-principal-software-engineer-aws-distributed-sql.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-11T23:01:07Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":45712,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-12T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":19},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=19"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Famazon-principal-software-engineer-aws-distributed-sql"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Famazon-principal-software-engineer-aws-distributed-sql"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Famazon-principal-software-engineer-aws-distributed-sql"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/amazon-principal-software-engineer-aws-distributed-sql\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Famazon-principal-software-engineer-aws-distributed-sql"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":4100692}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"amazon.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":4100692},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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