System Development Engineer

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 build the cloud rather than just use it? As a System Development Engineer, you'll be the force behind the software services and platforms that build, operate, monitor, and assure the network within an entire region. You won't just be maintaining systems - you'll be inventing the automation and tooling that transforms how one of the world's largest cloud networks operates.

This role sits at a unique intersection of software engineering and operational excellence. You'll develop 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 link between innovation and execution, the engineer who ensures these services run flawlessly while driving permanent solutions that prevent issues from ever recurring.

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, diagnose issues at the code and systems level, and build full-stack solutions from design through to operational management. The breadth 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, and where your software engineering skills directly power 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 continuously reinvent them to be better, faster, and more resilient.

Your engineering work spans the full lifecycle. You'll manage service deployments, troubleshoot operational issues, and maintain service health - but you'll spend the majority of your time driving permanent solutions that eliminate recurring problems, developing automation that minimises human intervention, and collaborating 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 investigate them thoroughly - 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.

You'll take ownership of in-house services developed specifically for this environment, carrying full-stack development responsibilities from design and implementation through to operational management and continuous improvement. You'll build reliable deployment mechanisms and monitoring solutions that address unique environmental challenges.

Communication is central to your impact. You'll regularly interact with global service teams who have limited visibility into the environment, providing clear explanations of complex situations and building the relationships that ensure successful deployments and effective problem resolution. Your influence will shape how services are developed to better support this critical mission.

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. You notice a service deployment that partially failed and begin investigating, tracing the issue through logs and system state to identify the root cause.

By mid-morning, you're deep in code. A recurring operational issue has been consuming team hours, and you're building the automation that will eliminate it permanently. 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. This is the kind of cross-service problem-solving that makes this role uniquely rewarding.

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 operational experience, and agree on a deployment plan that minimises risk. These relationships are what make complex deployments succeed.

In the afternoon, you shift to development work on an in-house tool your team is building - a monitoring solution that will give network engineers better visibility into service health. You're designing the architecture, writing tests, and thinking through edge cases. It's full-stack work that stretches your engineering skills and delivers direct value to your colleagues.

You end the day reviewing a pull request from a teammate and participating in your on-call handover, briefing the next engineer on current state and any items to watch. Tomorrow brings a new set of challenges - and that's exactly why you love this role.

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

- Experience in automating, deploying, and supporting large-scale infrastructure

- Experience programming with at least one modern language such as Python, Ruby, Golang, Java, C++, C#, Rust

- Experience with Linux/Unix

- Experience with CI/CD pipelines build processes

Preferred qualifications

- Experience with distributed systems at scale

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.