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Principal Solutions Architect, AWS Industries - Media & Entertainment, Games and Sports (AWSI-MEGS)

Amazon

Santa Monica, CAJob$183–247K/yrSeen todaySeen in employer's feed today

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At a glance

Compensation
$183–247K/yr
Location
Santa Monica, CA
Work Authorization
Not specified

Olive lists jobs from US employers, including remote roles you can work from the United States.

Job overview

The Principal Solutions Architect at AWS partners with customers and senior executives to address complex business and technology challenges. The role designs cloud solutions, translates business objectives into technology strategies, and influences product direction based on customer needs. It focuses on media, entertainment, games, and sports workloads, including streaming, media supply chain, and ad tech, while collaborating with internal teams and industry partners.

Skills & qualifications

RequiredNice to have

Skills

Cloud ArchitectureDistributed SystemsAutomationWorkflow ManagementDatabase DesignPresentationsWhiteboardingCloud MigrationMedia Supply ChainStreamingGamingLive BroadcastSports AnalyticsSoftware Development ToolsSoftware Development MethodologiesTechnology RoadmappingExecutive CommunicationTrainingWorkshopsPublications

Qualifications

12+ Years Technology ExperienceBachelor's in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics or Equivalent

Benefits

Medical Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
401(k) Match
Paid Time Off
Parental Leave

Full job description

Description

Are you a technical leader who thrives on solving complex business and technology challenges? Do you enjoy working directly with senior executives to shape long-term strategies and architect solutions that drive meaningful business outcomes? If so, we want to hear from you.

As a Principal Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS), you will partner with customers to tackle their most complex problems, designing solutions that balance scalability, security, cost optimization, and performance. You will operate as a trusted advisor to senior leadership, translating business objectives into actionable technology strategies. Your work will span from defining cloud architecture blueprints to influencing product direction based on real customer needs. This is a role where your technical depth, business acumen, and ability to communicate across all levels will directly shape how organizations adopt and succeed with AWS.

Key job responsibilities

  • Lead the design of end-to-end cloud solutions for customers, working backward from their business objectives to architect systems that are extensible, secure, reliable, and cost-optimized.

  • Serve as a trusted technical advisor by building relationships with customer leadership, understanding their technology challenges, and ensuring short-term decisions align with long-term business outcomes.

  • Drive technical solution discussions with customer teams, diving into design choices, best practices, and use cases while proactively identifying and mitigating high-risk or overly complex approaches.

  • Develop and deliver technical content such as presentations, workshops, sample code, and white papers to educate customers on cloud strategy and architectural best practices.

  • Collaborate with internal teams including sales, professional services, support, and engineering to accelerate solution adoption and contribute reusable reference designs for the broader Solutions Architecture community.

  • Stay at the forefront of emerging technology in streaming, media supply chain, and ad tech, including generative AI, so you can keep earning your place as your customers' trusted advisor as their industry evolves.

  • Build and showcase hands-on prototypes, demos, and proofs of concept that bring new capabilities to life and shorten the path from idea to production.

  • Partner with ISVs and industry partners to shape joint solutions across live streaming, media asset management, and ad delivery and personalization.

  • Share your expertise through blogs, conference talks, and industry events, helping AWS stay established as the cloud of choice for media companies looking to grow revenue and modernize their operations.

A day in the life

You might start your morning preparing for a strategy session with a customer's CTO, reviewing their current architecture and identifying areas where AWS services can unlock new capabilities. Later, you could be whiteboarding a solution design with a customer's engineering team, working through trade-offs around reliability and cost. In the afternoon, you might collaborate with AWS product teams to share patterns you've observed across customer engagements, then wrap up by drafting a reference architecture that other Solutions Architects can leverage for similar use cases.

About the team

We're the AWS Media, Entertainment, Games and Sports (MEGS) Solutions Architecture team, and our vision is simple: we meet our customers where they are, design what's next, prove what's possible, and scale what matters for every fan, every story, every screen, and every experience. #InventForFans

We come with a point of view, staying on the frontier of technology and pushing it where it matters most to our customers. We're builders who roll up our sleeves to create demos, proofs of concept, and prototypes, because a working idea beats a slide every time. We collaborate across account teams, specialists, and service teams, acting as the connective tissue that shapes what gets built next. And we scale our thinking, turning what we learn in the field into patterns and reference architectures that the whole industry can use. Every activity backs an outcome for our customers, and we're intentional about the work that matters.

Basic Qualifications

  • 12+ years of specific technology domain areas (e.g. software development, cloud computing, systems engineering, infrastructure, security, networking, data & analytics) experience

  • Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics or equivalent

  • Experience developing technology solutions and evangelising end-to-end technology roadmaps that guide IT transformations toward cloud computing

  • Experience communicating across technical and non-technical audiences and at C-level, including training, workshops, publications

Preferred Qualifications

  • Knowledge of distributed systems design and implementation or equivalent

  • Knowledge of large scale automation and workflow management or equivalent

  • Knowledge of database design and implementation or equivalent

  • Knowledge of presentations and whiteboarding skills with a high degree of comfort speaking with internal and external executives, IT management, and developers

  • Experience architecting, migrating, transforming or modernizing customer requirements to the cloud

  • Familiarity with media, entertainment, gaming, or sports industry workloads

  • Domain expertise in one or more areas: media supply chain, streaming, gaming, live broadcast, or sports analytics

  • Track record of thought leadership (publications, conference talks)

  • Knowledge of software development tools and methodologies

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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, CA, East Palo Alto - 210,200.00 - 284,300.00 USD annually

USA, CA, Irvine - 182,800.00 - 247,300.00 USD annually

USA, CA, San Francisco - 210,200.00 - 284,300.00 USD annually

USA, CA, Santa Monica - 182,800.00 - 247,300.00 USD annually

How this job compares

Set against the 8,713 open Solutions Architect jobs on Olive Jobs, counted November 7, 2026.

Pay
  • This posting$183–247K/yr
  • California median$152–266K/yr990 salary ranges
  • US median$140–247K/yr7,733 salary ranges

This range's midpoint, $215K, is 3% above the California median midpoint ($208K) — in the middle half of Solutions Architect salary ranges in California.

Openings
Olive Jobs lists 1,077 open Solutions Architect jobs in California and 8,713 across the US. 11% of them nationwide are listed as remote or flexible.
Hiring the most in California
Experience
This posting asks for at least 12 years of experience — more than three in four Solutions Architect postings that state a minimum ask for (median 7 years, across 7,644 postings).
Education
2,802 of the 8,713 open Solutions Architect jobs (32%) ask for a bachelor's degree or higher.

Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on November 7, 2026. Pay medians are the middle values of the low ends and of the high ends of postings that list both ends of a range in the same cadence (a yearly salary or an hourly rate); a range's midpoint is halfway between its ends. Pay and experience figures resting on fewer than 20 postings are left out.

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