Software Engineer, AppSTAR COMPASS

Write the code behind the system that decides how security attention gets spent. You'll join a brand-new team building at Amazon scale, on a platform that evaluates every code change tens of thousands of engineers ship and clears the vast majority without a human ever touching it.

Security review has always been a bottleneck. A developer ships a change, waits for someone to look at it, and the security team drowns in a queue it can never fully clear. We're ending that tradeoff. Our engine evaluates changes as they happen, decides how much scrutiny each one actually needs, and handles the common case automatically: no wait for the developer, no queue for the reviewer.

The team is funded and forming now, which means you'll be building features on a system that doesn't exist yet rather than maintaining one that does. You'll have senior engineers to learn from on the design side and security engineers backing you with the risk expertise, so you're building against what actually matters instead of guessing. If you want your code to be the reason a security review takes zero minutes instead of two weeks, come build it.

- Own real features on a greenfield platform, end to end

- Work on agentic and automated evaluation running continuously at high volume

- Learn the security side from engineers who do it every day

Key job responsibilities

- Design, build, test, deploy, and operate features of the platform that evaluates code changes for security risk and routes the ones that need a human.

- Own your features across their full lifecycle, from working out what the customer actually needs through production operation and the documentation that lets someone else maintain it.

- Write code that meets a high bar for correctness, testing, security, and operability, and keep it that way as the system grows.

- Build and tune automated evaluation logic, including agentic checks, working with the security engineers who understand what the checks need to catch.

- Partner with senior engineers on design, bringing them the hard tradeoffs and clarifying requirements that arrive incomplete.

- Participate actively in code review, giving useful feedback to teammates at every level.

- Take part in operational support and on-call. When something breaks, find the root cause and fix it permanently rather than patching around it.

- Document how your software works, how it's operated, and how it fits the bigger picture, and help new teammates get up to speed on it.

- Look for the improvements nobody asked for: the flaky test, the manual step, the slow path.

A day in the life

Most of your day is designing and writing code on a system that's still taking shape. You'll pick up a feature, work out the approach, take the tricky parts to a senior engineer or a design review, then build it and ship it. Some days you're deep in why a class of change is getting evaluated wrong at volume. Others you're on operational support, chasing a root cause. You'll sit with security engineers to understand what your code needs to catch, and review your teammates' code as often as they review yours.

About the team

We decide how security attention gets spent, automatically. Our customers are the engineers shipping code every day and the security engineers reviewing it, and right now both pay a tax we think is avoidable. Our job is to remove it. We're brand new, small, and close enough to the outcome that you'll see your work land. We hold a high bar on code and operations because automated decisions have to be trustworthy, and we'd rather encode expertise into a mechanism than depend on one person holding it.

Diverse Experiences

Amazon Security 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 Amazon Security?

At Amazon, security is central to maintaining customer trust and delivering delightful customer experiences. Our organization is responsible for creating and maintaining a high bar for security across all of Amazon’s products and services. We offer talented security professionals the chance to accelerate their careers with opportunities to build experience in a wide variety of areas including cloud, devices, retail, entertainment, healthcare, operations, and physical stores.

Inclusive Team Culture

In Amazon Security, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Ongoing DEI events and learning experiences inspire us to continue learning and to embrace our uniqueness. Addressing the toughest security challenges requires that we seek out and celebrate a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and voices.

Training & 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, training, 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 flexible work hours and arrangements are part of our culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve.

Basic qualifications

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

- 2+ years of non-internship design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience

- 1+ years of software development engineer or related occupational experience

- 1+ years of designing and developing large-scale, multi-tiered, multi-threaded, embedded or distributed software applications, tools, systems, and services using: C#, C++, Java, or Perl experience

- 1+ years of Object Oriented Design experience

- Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field

- Experience programming with at least one software programming language

Preferred qualifications

- 3+ 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

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.

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, TX, Austin - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually