Principal Design Technologist, AWS Search, Security, Observability, & Governance

About the role

Are you the person who makes a bold interaction idea technically real? AWS is looking for a Principal Design Technologist to serve as technical advisor for AWS SSOG (Security, Search, Observability & Governance).

You'll sit at the center of a self-learning intelligence flywheel: our Delight Lab validates novel interaction models - graduated autonomy, step-level replay, policy-check loops - and you make them real, stress-testing them through high-fidelity prototypes and landing them as production-ready components in our Rhythm design system on AWS Core. This is a deep-craft builder role with outsized leverage: every pattern you prove out compounds across the portfolio. If you live in the codebase, think in systems, and want your prototypes to become the standard the whole org ships against, we'd love to hear from you.

Key job responsibilities

• Serve as the Director of Design's technical advisor on innovation: judge which novel interaction models emerging from Delight Lab are worth betting on, and chart the path to make them real.
• Push the frontier of agentic interaction design - graduated autonomy, step-level replay, policy-check loops - proving out ideas no one has shipped yet through high-fidelity, working prototypes.
• Invent the patterns, not just implement them: originate new interaction models and reusable components where none exist, and set the technical standard for what "state of the art" means across SSOG.
• Turn breakthrough prototypes into production-ready Rhythm components on AWS Core, so every validated innovation compounds across six products and counting instead of being re-solved.
• Build the connective tissue of the innovation flywheel, the tooling and systems that let the team sense, synthesize, and scale emerging interaction patterns faster.
• De-risk the boldest bets: stress-test feasibility early so the org can commit to ambitious ideas with confidence rather than retreating to safe ones.
• Raise the innovation bar of the entire design org through prototypes, patterns, and pairing, making everyone around you braver and more technical.

A day in the life

Your morning might start in Delight Lab's latest findings - a graduated-autonomy model that tested well - and by mid-morning you're building a working prototype to pressure-test whether it holds up technically, not just in a research setting. After lunch, you're pairing with design-system engineering to turn an approval-gate pattern you proved last week into a production Rhythm component, so every team gets it for free.

Later, you're in a working session with the Director of Design, giving a direct read on which emerging interaction models are feasible, which need another pass, and what it'll take to ship them. This team builds in production, not in Figma - and your prototypes are how the org decides what's real.

Basic Qualifications

• A demonstrable portfolio of shipped, production-grade interfaces you built - not just prototyped - for complex, data-dense technical products (observability, security, developer tools, or cloud infrastructure).
• Expert front-end engineering ability: you build high-fidelity, interactive prototypes and commit production code (React/TypeScript, HTML/CSS), and partner with engineering as a peer in the codebase.
• Experience building and maintaining design-system components at scale, architecture, accessibility, and cross-team adoption.
• Experience translating novel, ambiguous interaction concepts into technically validated, shippable patterns.
• Experience operating at Staff/Principal level (or equivalent) as a design technologist, creative technologist, or design engineer at a top-tier technology company.
• A track record of influence as a technical advisor or force-multiplier across teams, raising others' craft through prototypes, tooling, and example rather than direct authority alone.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience prototyping AI/ML and agentic experiences - autonomous agents, human-in-the-loop, progressive/graduated autonomy, step-level replay, policy-check loops.
• Experience building the tooling or systems that let a team sense, synthesize, and scale interaction patterns (design-intelligence pipelines, pattern libraries, instrumentation).
• Direct experience in observability, security, search, or governance product domains.
• Experience taking research or lab findings and operationalizing them into a production design system.
• Proficiency with AI-assisted design and build tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, Kiro, v0).
• Published thought leadership or recognized open-source/community contributions in design engineering.

Additional information

Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If the country/region you're applying in isn't listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.

Pay and benefits

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.

• USA, CA, Santa Clara - 211,000.00 - 285,400.00 USD annually
• USA, NY, New York - 201,900.00 - 273,000.00 USD annually
• USA, WA, Bellevue - 183,500.00 - 248,200.00 USD annually
• USA, WA, Seattle - 183,500.00 - 248,200.00 USD annually