Senior System Development Engineer, Core Networking

G'day! You've found an opportunity that could define your next chapter.

Applicants must be Australian citizens and hold or be eligible to obtain an Australian Government Security Clearance with the ability to successfully complete an Organisational Suitability Assessment. More information regarding security clearances can be found at https://www.agsva.gov.au/.

Based in Sydney or Melbourne - we offer relocation support for candidates moving from other states.

The Mission - Why This Program, Why Now?

You're joining at the defining moment of one of the most significant technology programmes Australia has ever undertaken. This programme will build and operate the dedicated cloud giving Australia's national security community and its allies the capability to see more, share more, innovate and act faster than ever before.

The architectural decisions being made now - how we structure networking, implement security controls, and automate at scale - will shape how Australia's national security community operates for the next decade. You won't be inheriting someone else's design choices. You'll be making them.

Your Opportunity

What if you could not only build the cloud, but lead the engineering that makes it resilient, self-healing, and world-class? As a Senior System Development Engineer in Core Networking, you'll be the driving force behind the software services and platforms that build, operate, monitor, and assure the network within an entire region - and you'll set the technical direction for how those systems evolve.

This role sits at the intersection of software engineering leadership and operational excellence. You'll develop deep expertise across 170+ network services built by teams spanning the globe - services that cannot be directly accessed or operated by their creators within this environment. That makes you the critical bridge between innovation and execution, the senior engineer who not only ensures these services run flawlessly but who architects the permanent solutions that prevent issues from ever recurring.

You'll own the dual mandate that defines this level: operational excellence today and engineering innovation for tomorrow. You'll identify patterns in operational burden and engineer them away at scale, building automation and tooling that gives your team back hours, days, and weeks. You'll mentor fellow engineers, contribute to architectural decisions that shape the programme's future, and champion operational best practices that raise the bar for the entire team.

Your internal customers are your network engineer colleagues, and through close collaboration, you share a common goal: serve external customers and grow through learning and innovation. You'll work across multiple programming languages and frameworks, lead the design of complex distributed solutions, and carry full-stack responsibilities from architecture through to operational management. The breadth and depth of exposure you'll gain here - across AWS services, technologies, and complex challenges - goes far beyond what a traditional service team role could offer.

This is an environment where operational problems become engineering opportunities, where every recurring issue is a chance to automate at scale, and where your technical leadership directly powers Australia's national security capability.

Benefits

- Learning & development - AWS training and certification support, access to internal learning platforms.

- Health, income protection and life cover - Amazon subsidises private health insurance premiums, and group salary continuance and life insurance are included at no cost to you.

- Military differential pay launching in Australia - Australian employees taking defence reserve leave may receive up to 52 weeks of military differential pay to help cover the difference in pay while serving.

- Employee Assistance Program - Free, confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for you and your family - mental health, financial coaching, legal questions, and everyday life events.

- Family-building benefit - Access to Maven for fertility treatment, adoption support, surrogacy, and parenting coaching.

- Amazon Extras & employee discount - cashback and discounts across hundreds of retail, fitness, travel, and lifestyle partners.

Key job responsibilities

You'll own the software services and platforms that keep the AWS network running within the region - and you'll lead the engineering effort to continuously reinvent them to be more resilient, more automated, and more scalable.

Your dual mandate - operational excellence today and engineering innovation for tomorrow - means no two weeks look the same. You'll own the health and reliability of critical network software systems, responding to operational events with the calm precision of someone who understands the architecture end-to-end. But you won't stop at firefighting. You'll identify patterns in operational burden and engineer them away, building automation that transforms manual runbooks into self-healing workflows.

Your engineering work spans the full lifecycle of complex distributed systems. You'll lead the design and implementation of solutions that reduce operational toil at scale, develop automation that minimises human intervention, and collaborate with global service teams to enhance stability and functionality. You'll design and implement entirely new software components, products, and services that improve operational efficiency on behalf of your network engineer customers.

When technical issues arise, you'll lead the investigation - diagnosing at the code or systems level, performing root cause analysis, implementing long-term fixes, and articulating technical requirements back to service owners with clarity and precision. When incidents arise, you'll lead with clarity and purpose. When the dust settles, you'll lead the retrospective that ensures the same issue never surfaces again.

You'll mentor fellow engineers, guiding them through operational deep-dives and passing on the craft of systems thinking. You'll contribute to architectural decisions that shape the programme's future, champion best practices that raise the bar for the entire team, and build the relationships with global service teams that ensure successful deployments and effective problem resolution.

A day in the life

Your morning begins with a health check across the services your team owns - reviewing deployment pipelines, scanning monitoring dashboards, and confirming that overnight automated processes completed successfully. A minor anomaly catches your eye; you investigate, trace it to a configuration drift in a network service, and push a fix before it becomes a customer-impacting event. That's the kind of proactive engineering that defines your approach.

By mid-morning, you're deep in code. The automation framework you've been architecting is nearly ready - once deployed, it will eliminate a recurring operational issue that currently consumes hours of engineering time each week. You're working across an unfamiliar codebase from a global service team, reading their implementation, understanding their design patterns, and developing a solution that integrates cleanly with their architecture while scaling to meet the unique demands of this environment.

After lunch, you join a collaboration session with a service team on the other side of the world. They're preparing a major deployment and need your expertise on how their service will behave in this environment. You provide detailed technical guidance, flag potential issues based on your deep operational experience, and agree on a deployment plan that minimises risk. You then shift to a cross-team design review where a colleague proposes a new approach to service monitoring - you ask the questions that sharpen the design and volunteer to prototype a component.

Later in the afternoon, you pair with a newer team member who's working through their first operational deep-dive. You guide them through the investigative process - how to read the signals, where to look next, when to escalate - passing on the craft of systems thinking that makes this team exceptional.

Before you wrap up, you update the engineering backlog with a new automation opportunity you identified this morning and review a pull request from a teammate. Every day, the systems get a little better because you were here.

About the team

The Systems Development team manages all of the software services and platforms that builds, operates, monitors and assures the AWS network within entire regions. We design and implement automation and new software solutions to improve operational efficiency on behalf of our Network Engineer customers. We're at the forefront of powering AWS's vast network infrastructure, transforming complex operational challenges into scalable systems that enhance the reliability and efficiency of one of the world's largest cloud networks.

Diverse Experiences

AWS values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the preferred 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

AWS values curiosity and connection. Our employee-led and company-sponsored affinity groups promote inclusion and empower our people to take pride in what makes us unique. Our inclusion events foster stronger, more collaborative teams. Our continual innovation is fueled by the bold ideas, fresh perspectives, and passionate voices our teams bring to everything we do.

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.

Basic qualifications

- 5+ years of deploying and operating in a Linux/Unix environment experience

- 5+ years of systems development in an IT or data center environment experience

- 3+ years of systems design, software development, operations, automation, and process improvement experience

- 3+ years of programming with at least one modern language such as C++, C#, Java, Python, Golang, PowerShell, Ruby experience

- Experience leading the design, automation, deployment, and support of large-scale infrastructure

Preferred qualifications

- Experience with distributed systems at scale

- Experience in mentoring, leading, or managing more junior engineers

- Experience with CI/CD pipelines build processes

- Experience in networking, storage systems, operating systems and hands-on systems engineering

- Experience building tools for building, testing, releasing or monitoring

Acknowledgement of country:

In the spirit of reconciliation Amazon acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

IDE statement:

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.