System Development Engineer, Aurora Storage : RDS

Application deadline: August 21, 2026

About the role

The Aurora Storage and RDS team builds and operates the distributed storage and database services that power Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS. We design and run the systems that store, replicate, and protect customer data at massive scale across AWS regions worldwide, delivering the durability, availability, and performance that millions of customers depend on every day.

We seek a Systems Development Engineer who is excited about solving challenging problems by developing our own solutions that keep Amazon's databases fast, reliable, and secure. Our challenges are broad and deep — we build flexible, scalable, high-performance, and robust tools and services. These services enable our engineers and operators to provision, monitor, and heal database fleets across the globe. In Aurora and RDS, we operate multiple large-scale storage and data platforms that allow customers to run their most critical workloads with confidence.

You will work with a group of engineers to operate these services to the highest operational level while building new tools and services to improve the customer experience and make it easier, faster, and cheaper for customers to get what they need. In Aurora Storage and RDS, we obsess over our customers, and their trust is our first priority. Trust is earned by building a highly respected engineering team to tackle new challenges at a large scale.

In this role, you will deliver high-quality, scalable products that are deployed to our services around the world. You will collaborate with product owners and customers to deliver the best features, using resources and technologies efficiently. You will work with stakeholders to define solutions that scale and satisfy a wide variety of database and storage needs. You will also assess risks, anticipate bottlenecks, and balance business needs against technical constraints to maximize business benefit.

This position requires that the candidate selected must currently possess and maintain an active TS/SCI security clearance. The position further requires that, after start, the selected candidate obtain and maintain an active TS/SCI security clearance with polygraph or commensurate clearance for each government agency for which they perform AWS work.

Responsibilities

• Create, improve, or invent tools and/or applications that are a part of a larger system.
• Write code that is secure, stable, testable, maintainable, and has minimal defects.
• Understand a variety of technologies such as hardware, software, networking, and operating systems, and how they interact with one another.
• Participate in team design, scoping, and prioritization discussions.
• Build systems and processes that enable other builders through improved safety, agility, and automation.
• Seek to learn the business context and technologies behind your team’s system implementations.
• Participate and improve overall operation and operational load through deep dive and solution-based insight.

Requirements

• 1+ years of designing or architecting (design patterns, reliability, and scaling) of new and existing systems experience.
• 4+ years of administrative experience in networking, storage systems, operating systems, and hands-on systems engineering experience.
• Bachelor's degree, or CSSLP (Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional).
• Knowledge of systems engineering fundamentals (networking, storage, operating systems).
• Experience programming with at least one modern language such as C++, C#, Java, Python, Golang, PowerShell, Ruby.
• Current, active US Government Security Clearance of Top Secret with SCI eligibility or above.

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of database systems and SQL.

About the team

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.

AWS Infrastructure Services (AIS) owns the design, planning, delivery, and operation of all AWS global infrastructure. In other words, we’re the people who keep the cloud running. We support all AWS data centers and all of the servers, storage, networking, power, and cooling equipment that ensure our customers have continual access to the innovation they rely on. We work on the most challenging problems, with thousands of variables impacting the supply chain — and we’re looking for talented people who want to help.

Benefits

• Health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance, and option for Supplemental life plans).
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP), Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line.
• Flexible Spending Accounts.
• Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage.
• 401(k) matching.
• Paid time off and parental leave.
• Sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs).

Pay

USA, CO, Denver - $129,200.00 - $174,800.00 USD annually.