Senior Software Development Engineer, Data Center Builder Tools

The Data Center Builder Tools team is looking for a seasoned, self-directed Senior Software Development Engineer to lead the design and evolution of the real-time middleware and controls platform that powers industrial control systems across AWS Data Centers worldwide. Contribute to Amazon's vision of developing the safest, most secure, reliable, and efficient data centers on Earth.

As a Senior Software Development Engineer (SDE III) on this team, you will set the technical direction for the software that sits between industrial hardware and the cloud, a unified, real-time data plane that lets control applications, device drivers, and cloud services exchange data reliably on industrial computing hardware. This is deep systems work at the boundary of software and hardware: you will own the architecture of the controls, the communication layer, and the protocol and cloud integrations that the entire platform is built on, and you will be the engineer others turn to for the hardest problems in real-time, distributed, and embedded systems.

In this role you will

Own the architecture: of the real-time middleware and controls, the data-exchange layer, canonical type system, and communication patterns (publish/subscribe and request/reply) that connect distributed control applications across languages and hardware and drive it through multiple iterations as requirements scale.

Set technical strategy: for how the platform integrates with industrial automation platforms and hardware protocols (e.g. IEC 61131-3, EtherCAT, PROFINET, Modbus, OPC-UA, IO-Link) and how new device drivers are built, so the platform scales to many protocols without bespoke effort.

Define the edge-to-cloud contract: how telemetry, metrics, and commands flow between devices and AWS services, with the right delivery guarantees, quality-of-service, and failure semantics for each class of data.

Solve the defining hard problems: of a system where correctness means both the right result and the right timing, bounded latency, determinism, resource constraints on embedded hardware, and graceful degradation when connectivity is lost.

Multiply the team: establish engineering standards, mentor SDE I/IIs and raise the bar in hiring, reviews, and design, and align hardware, controls, security, and operations partners around a shared technical vision.

If you're excited by low-level systems, real-time data movement, and connecting physical equipment to the cloud at scale and by being the technical leader who makes it happen this is the role for you.

Key job responsibilities

As an SDE III on this team, you are a technical leader accountable for the architecture and long-term health of the controls and middleware platform, not just individual components. You will operate across multiple workstreams and teams, make the consequential design decisions, and remain deeply hands-on where it matters most.

Your primary responsibilities will include:

Architecting the platform, not just components: owning the end-to-end design of the controls and real-time middleware across embedded/edge controllers and the cloud, making the durable decisions on type systems, serialization, memory layout, schema evolution, and communication patterns that everything else depends on.

Driving multi-quarter technical strategy: defining the roadmap for the next iteration of "What comes next", industrial protocol support, and cloud integration, sequencing the work, and making explicit build-vs-buy and short-term-vs-durable tradeoffs with the data to back them.

Owning real-time correctness at system scale: reasoning about latency budgets, throughput, determinism, and failure modes across a distributed system adjacent to physical control loops, and setting the standards that keep those guarantees intact as the system grows.

Leading cross-team and cross-discipline efforts: turning ambiguous, org-level requirements into clear technical direction, and aligning hardware, controls, security, and operations partners (and other software teams) around shared interfaces and contracts.

Raising the engineering bar broadly: establishing standards for testing (unit, integration, and on-hardware validation), performance benchmarking, operational excellence, and code quality, and holding the team to them through design and code review.

Growing engineers: mentoring Junior and Mid level SDE, developing their technical judgment, and contributing as a strong interviewer and bar raiser in hiring.

De-risking the hardest problems: personally diving into the highest-ambiguity, highest-impact technical challenges (new protocol integrations, performance-critical paths, cross-language data exchange) and bringing them to a proven, maintainable end state.

The ideal candidate is a senior systems engineer with a track record of owning the architecture of complex software systems and delivering them to production. You have depth across several of: real-time or embedded systems, industrial automation platforms and hardware protocols, distributed systems, middleware/messaging (pub/sub, RPC), and cloud communication and the breadth to reason about how all of these fit together into a coherent platform. You are comfortable working close to the metal (memory, concurrency, serialization, timing) and setting direction at the system and organizational level. You influence beyond your own team, make sound decisions under ambiguity and hardware/timing constraints, and lift the engineers around you. Experience with Rust, C/C++, or Python, and with technologies such as industrial automation platforms, OPC-UA, DDS/Zenoh or similar real-time middleware, is a strong advantage.

A day in the life

AWS Infrastructure Services (AIS) owns the design, planning, delivery, and operation of all AWS global infrastructure. In other words, we’re the people who keep the cloud running. We support all AWS data centers and all of the servers, storage, networking, power, and cooling equipment that ensure our customers have continual access to the innovation they rely on. We work on the most challenging problems, with thousands of variables impacting the supply chain - and we’re looking for talented people who want to help.

You’ll join a diverse team of software, hardware, and network engineers, supply chain specialists, security experts, operations managers, and other vital roles. You’ll collaborate with people across AWS to help us deliver the highest standards for safety and security while providing seemingly infinite capacity at the lowest possible cost for our customers. And you’ll experience an inclusive culture that welcomes bold ideas and empowers you to own them to completion.

About the team

The Data Center Builder Tools team develops tooling for device frameworks, and device lifecycle management in AWS Data Centers. This includes both frontend and backend services use by internal development teams and on-site customers. Our tools power the industrial controls systems deployed in our data centers.

Diverse Experiences

AWS values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.

Why AWS?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped innovating - that’s why customers from the most successful startups to Global 500 companies trust our robust suite of products and services to power their businesses.

Inclusive Team Culture

Here at AWS, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Our employee-led affinity groups foster a culture of inclusion that empower us to be proud of our differences. Ongoing events and learning experiences, including our Conversations on Race and Ethnicity (CORE) and AmazeCon conferences, inspire us to never stop embracing our uniqueness.

Mentorship & Career Growth

We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, mentorship and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.

Work/Life Balance

We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why we strive for flexibility as part of our working culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve in the cloud.

Basic qualifications

- Experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team

- Experience programming with at least one modern language such as Java, C++, or C# including object-oriented design

- Experience in professional, non-internship software development

- Experience leading the architecture and design (architecture, design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and current systems

- Knowledge of professional software engineering & best practices for full software development life cycle, including coding standards, software architectures, code reviews, source control management, continuous deployments, testing, and operational excellence

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 with industrial automation platforms, hardware protocols, or real-time middleware (e.g. IEC 61131-3, OPC-UA, DDS/Zenoh, ROS2)

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