Principal Software Engineer, AWS Distributed SQL

About the role

AWS Databases is hiring Principal/Sr Principal Engineers to lead query processing for two of its key database engines. Amazon Redshift is a petabyte-scale cloud data warehouse used by tens of thousands of customers. Amazon Aurora DSQL is a serverless, distributed SQL database built for active-active availability and virtually unlimited scale.

Both engines depend on the same discipline: turning SQL into well-optimized plans and running them fast at massive scale. Depending on your depth and interests, you'll join one of three teams: Redshift Query Optimization, the Redshift Execution Engine, or Aurora DSQL Query Processing.

Key job responsibilities

• Set and execute a multi-year technical strategy for query optimization and execution that improves price-performance against Databricks, Snowflake, Google BigQuery, and other cloud databases.
• Own core query processing architecture, including parsing and semantic analysis, query rewriting, cost-based planning, statistics and cardinality estimation, plan caching, and physical execution.
• Build high-performance execution engines (vectorized and pipelined operators, memory management, code generation, massively parallel and distributed execution) that serve analytical and transactional workloads.
• Advance optimization over open table formats and heterogeneous storage, such as Iceberg and Parquet data lakes and federated sources. Build adaptive execution that corrects plans at runtime.
• Turn ambiguous customer and business requirements into concrete projects, and personally own design, code, deployment, and operations from end to end.
• Partner across AWS Databases on product vision and integration with the broader database portfolio. Work directly with customers on adoption and roadmap.
• Raise the engineering bar through design reviews, coding standards, and operational excellence. Mentor senior engineers, and help hire and grow a strong team.

Basic Qualifications

• 10+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
• 10+ years of leading design or architecture (design patterns, reliability, and scaling) of new and existing systems
• Deep experience in database internals or query processing (query optimization, execution engines, or both) and in distributed systems
• Proficiency in C++, Rust, Java, or a similar systems language, building and operating mission-critical, highly available systems
• Experience as a technical leader driving strategy and complex, high-impact projects across organizational boundaries
• Experience mentoring engineers or leading engineering teams

Preferred Qualifications

• Masters or PhD in databases, distributed systems, or a closely related field
• Expert knowledge of optimizer frameworks: cost-based optimization, join enumeration, plan-space exploration, rewrite rules, cardinality estimation, and statistics (histograms, sampling, feedback-driven re-optimization)
• Expert knowledge of execution engines: vectorized execution, operator pipelines, memory management, and code generation
• Deep understanding of the PostgreSQL query engine
• Experience optimizing queries over data lake formats (Iceberg, Parquet, Hudi) and federated sources
• Publications or active involvement in the database research community (SIGMOD, VLDB)

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, East Palo Alto - 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