Software Development Engineer, Alexa Connectivity Devices

We are building a new device software team in Bangalore to power the next generation of Amazon connected devices. As an OS / Kernel Engineer, you will own the foundational operating system layer - Linux kernel, device drivers, RTOS, and bootloaders - on which all device software depends. You will optimize for boot time, memory footprint, and power efficiency on resource-constrained hardware, and partner with SoC vendors on low-level platform enablement.

Key job responsibilities

Develop and maintain Linux kernel configurations, device drivers, and board support packages (BSPs)

Optimize boot time, memory footprint, and power consumption at the OS level

Implement and maintain bootloader chains (U-Boot, custom) with secure boot support

Port and adapt RTOS components (FreeRTOS, Zephyr) for companion microcontrollers

Debug kernel panics, race conditions, memory leaks, and other low-level system issues

Collaborate with SoC vendors on kernel patches, errata workarounds, and BSP updates

Own kernel upgrade strategy and long-term support (LTS) branch management

A day in the life

As a member of the leadership team, you will serve as the technical leader for device software development and operations. You will collaborate with stakeholders across Alexa Devices and Alexa Cloud teams to define roadmaps, plan requirements, make prioritization trade-offs, and feature development. You will partner with principal engineers to brainstorm solutions, solve problems, and deliver features.

About the team

The Alexa Connected Devices team delivers low-latency, low-cost, highly reliable, and scalable connectivity between Alexa-enabled devices and the Alexa Cloud. We improve the speed and reliability of customer interactions with Alexa while simplifying the developer experience by abstracting connection management. Our services handle tens of billions of transactions daily. This is a highly visible role spanning inception, feature development, and partnering closely with tier-1 Cloud Services. The ideal candidate is passionate about Alexa and thrives delivering high-quality device capabilities in a hyper-growth environment.

Basic qualifications

- 7+ years of non-internship professional software development experience

- 5+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience

- 5+ years of leading design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience

- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent work experience

- 7+ years of experience in Linux kernel development or systems programming

- Proficiency in C/C++; working knowledge of ARM or RISC-V assembly

- Experience writing or maintaining Linux device drivers (character, block, network, platform)

- Deep understanding of memory management (MMU, DMA, cache coherency), scheduler internals, and power management frameworks

- Hands-on experience with bootloaders (U-Boot, GRUB, or custom)

Preferred qualifications

- 5+ years of full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations experience

- Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent

- Linux kernel upstream contributions (accepted patches)

- Experience with real-time patches (PREEMPT_RT) or Xenomai

- Familiarity with ARM TrustZone, OP-TEE, or secure world partitioning

- Familiarity with kernel debugging tools: ftrace, perf, kgdb, crash utility

- Background in RTOS development (FreeRTOS, Zephyr, ThreadX)

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