
Software Development Engineer, Amazon Search Navigation AI
Seattle, WAJob$144–194K/yrSeen 1w agoSeen in employer's feed 6 days ago
Most applications go out cold — see where you stand first. No sign-up to start.
You apply on the employer's site, with no Olive account needed.
Watch jobs like this. New roles like this one near Seattle, WA, by email.
Don't just apply. Show up ready.
Olive works from this exact posting.
At a glance
Olive lists jobs from US employers, including remote roles you can work from the United States.
Job overview
The Amazon Search Navigation AI team builds personalized search refinements and the platform that serves them at global scale. The Software Development Engineer will improve distributed services and real-time LLM serving, and work with Applied Scientists to bring models from research into production. The role also supports data pipelines, experimentation, and operational excellence for Search Navigation experiences.
Skills & qualifications
Skills
Qualifications
Benefits
Full job description
Description
The Amazon Search Navigation AI team helps customers go from a broad search intent to the few products that fit their needs, so they can make a confident purchase decision. We generate highly relevant, context-aware, and personalized search refinements. We also decide the order they appear in across Amazon's Search Navigation experiences, guiding customers to the most relevant results. The team owns Search Navigation's P0 metrics and defect guardrails, which keep performance and reliability high for hundreds of millions of customers.
We are reinventing search refinement with generative AI. Our recently launched Smart Refinement experience uses large language models (LLMs) served online to turn product specifications into natural-language suggestions that match how customers think, such as "for colder weather" or "lightweight for travel." Each suggestion is personalized to the customer's context. Next, we are building multi-turn, conversational refinement, where each interaction builds on the last and helps customers narrow their intent in fewer steps.
We build and run the engineering systems behind this work, including the Navigation Experience Service (NES). NES connects to Amazon's core search systems, serves more than 3 billion queries worldwide every day, and runs real-time LLM inference at global scale under strict latency and cost limits. Our platform supports launches of new navigation content and UIs, and it makes fast offline and online experimentation possible.
We are looking for a Software Development Engineer who is a pragmatic problem solver, comfortable with ambiguity, and curious about applied science. You will build and improve the Search Navigation platform, including the systems that serve LLMs in real time, and work closely with Applied Scientists to take new models from research into production.
Key job responsibilities
-
Design, build, and operate large-scale, distributed, low-latency services that power Amazon Search Navigation experiences worldwide
-
Build and optimize online LLM serving for Smart Refinement and multi-turn conversational refinement, with a focus on latency, reliability, and cost
-
Work with Applied Scientists, Product Managers, and Program Managers to define requirements and integrate models into production systems
-
Build scalable data pipelines that process large volumes of search and behavioral data for feature generation, model training, and evaluation
-
Design, run, and analyze online A/B experiments to measure the impact of new models and features
-
Contribute to operational excellence for critical services, including monitoring, on-call, and P0 metrics and defect guardrails
-
Write high-quality, well-tested code and take part in design and code reviews
Basic Qualifications
-
3+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
-
3+ years of non-internship design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
-
3+ years of software development engineer or related occupational experience
-
3+ 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
-
3+ years of Object Oriented Design experience
-
Experience programming with at least one software programming language
Preferred Qualifications
-
Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent
-
Experience in developing and deploying LLMs in production on GPUs, Neuron, TPU or other AI acceleration hardware
-
Experience in machine learning, data mining, information retrieval, statistics or natural language processing
-
Experience with Machine Learning and Large Language Model fundamentals, including architecture, training/inference lifecycles, and optimization of model execution
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, WA, Seattle - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually
How this job compares
Set against the 1,371 open Software Development Engineer jobs on Olive Jobs, counted November 5, 2026.
- Pay
- This posting$144–194K/yr
- Washington median$144–194K/yr455 salary ranges
- US median$144–194K/yr1,245 salary ranges
This range's midpoint, $169K, is close to the Washington median midpoint ($169K) — in the middle half of Software Development Engineer salary ranges in Washington.
- Openings
- Olive Jobs lists 463 open Software Development Engineer jobs in Washington and 1,371 across the US. 2% of them nationwide are listed as remote or flexible.
- Experience
- This posting asks for at least 3 years of experience; Software Development Engineer postings that state a minimum ask for 3 years at the median (1,220 postings).
- Education
- 601 of the 1,371 open Software Development Engineer jobs (44%) ask for a bachelor's degree or higher.
Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on November 5, 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.
Prepare for this role
You've read the whole posting — now see how you match it.

