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Principal Software Engineer

Amazon

Santa Clara, CAJob$230–311K/yrSeen 5 days agoSeen in employer's feed 1 day ago

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At a glance

Compensation
$230–311K/yr
Location
Santa Clara, CA
Work Authorization
Not specified

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

Job overview

Amazon seeks a technically deep Principal Engineer to set architecture, engineering strategy, and technical standards for AgentCore, a platform for deploying and operating autonomous AI agents. The role involves building a new AWS service and solving complex Generative AI engineering challenges. The engineer will deliver strategic, scalable systems, shape technical direction, mentor engineers, and help guide the Agentic AI team’s technology, product, and business.

Skills & qualifications

RequiredNice to have

Skills

Software DevelopmentSystem DesignSoftware ArchitectureDesign PatternsReliabilityScalabilityProgrammingTechnical LeadershipMentoringMachine Learning SystemsHighly Scalable SystemsSoftware Development Life CycleCoding StandardsCode ReviewsSource Control ManagementBuild ProcessesTestingOperations

Qualifications

12+ Years Software Development8+ Years Design or ArchitectureEngineering Team Leadership Experience12+ Years ProgrammingBachelor's in Computer Science or Equivalent10+ Years Highly Scalable Systems15+ Years Software Development Life Cycle

Benefits

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

Full job description

Description

We are seeking technically deep Principal Engineer to drive the architecture, engineering strategy, and technical standards for AgentCore. AgentCore, is a comprehensive, modular platform for deploying and operating autonomous AI agents securely and at scale, providing serverless runtime, memory, identity, gateway, and observability components.

The Principal Engineer will be a hands-on technical leader, tackling the hardest, most ambiguous problems in the rapidly evolving Generative AI space, and setting the technical direction for a platform that is critical to accelerating customers' agents to production.

Key job responsibilities

In this role, you will build a new AWS service that is going to be trend setting in the Gen AI field. This is an area that requires solving the hardest engineering challenges to enable machine learning powered solutions for our customers. As a tier zero Amazon service our solutions have to be scalable, efficient, and fault tolerant. Experience with machine learning systems is preferred, but not required. You will deliver some of our most strategic technical projects, deliver large scalable systems, design new software systems and have a significant bottom-line impact on our business and competitive position. In addition to delivering critical software, you will draw from a deep and broad technical expertise to mentor engineers and provide leadership on complex technical issues. This position within the Agentic AI team presents a unique and rare opportunity to get in on the ground floor within a fast growing business and help shape the technology, product and the business. A successful candidate will bring deep technical and software expertise, desire to have an industry wide impact and ability to work within a fast moving, startup environment in a large company to rapidly deliver services that have a broad business impact.

Basic qualifications

12+ years of non-internship professional software development experience

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

Experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team

12+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience

Basic Qualifications

12+ years of non-internship professional software development experience

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

Experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team

12+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience

Preferred Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent

10+ years of highly scalable systems experience

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

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.

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, Santa Clara - 230,100.00 - 311,200.00 USD annually

USA, NY, New York - 220,100.00 - 297,700.00 USD annually

USA, WA, Seattle - 200,100.00 - 270,600.00 USD annually

How this job compares

Set against the 535 open Principal Software Engineer jobs on Olive Jobs, counted October 27, 2026.

Pay
  • This posting$230–311K/yr
  • California median$226–345K/yr107 salary ranges
  • US median$169–295K/yr483 salary ranges

This range's midpoint, $271K, is 11% below the California median midpoint ($304K) — in the middle half of Principal Software Engineer salary ranges in California.

Openings
Olive Jobs lists 117 open Principal Software Engineer jobs in California and 535 across the US. 24% 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; Principal Software Engineer postings that state a minimum ask for 10 years at the median (481 postings).
Education
396 of the 535 open Principal Software Engineer jobs (74%) ask for a bachelor's degree or higher.

Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on October 27, 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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