Software Development Engineer - Amazon LEO, LEO Pop Control Plane

Amazon Project Leo is building a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites to deliver low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to communities around the world. As a Senior Software Development Engineer on the networking team, you will architect and build the data-plane and control-plane traffic processing systems that connect the satellite network to customers. You will design these systems from the ground up as Project Leo prepares to launch worldwide service, working across the full software lifecycle from requirements through deployment and operations. This is a hands-on technical leadership role where your design decisions will directly affect how millions of people experience the internet.

Export Control Requirement:
Due to applicable export control laws and regulations, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the {ADDRESS} as a refugee or granted asylum.

Key job responsibilities
Own the architectural direction of the networking data-plane and control-plane systems, defining scalability, performance, and security tradeoffs while keeping designs simple and extensible.
Lead multi-engineer projects to build networking functions on cloud infrastructure, establishing development, testing, and deployment best practices that the broader team adopts.
Collaborate with satellite network, ground station, and customer-facing teams to gather requirements, define interfaces, and ensure your systems integrate into the end-to-end network architecture.
Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines, automated tests, and operational dashboards that keep services reliable and enable rapid, incremental delivery of new capabilities.
Coach and mentor engineers through design reviews and code reviews, raising the team's overall code quality and helping colleagues grow into larger technical responsibilities.

Key job responsibilities
- Design and own the architectural direction of the Pop DataPlane traffic processing systems, balancing scalability, performance, and security tradeoffs across the full software lifecycle.
- Lead multi-engineer projects to build networking functions on AWS cloud infrastructure, establishing best practices for development, testing, and deployment processes.
- Collaborate with satellite network, ground station, and customer-facing teams to gather requirements, define interfaces, and ensure your systems integrate into the broader LEO architecture.
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines, automated tests, and operational dashboards to ensure system reliability and rapid delivery of new capabilities.
- Coach and mentor engineers on the team, driving a culture of high-quality code, thorough design reviews, and continuous improvement.

A day in the life
You will often start by reviewing operational metrics for the networking services your team owns, then move into design sessions with satellite network and ground station engineers to work through how new traffic flows will be processed. Afternoons typically mix hands-on coding with code reviews where you help set the quality bar. You will regularly partner with product and systems engineers to turn customer connectivity requirements into technical designs, and you will participate in on-call rotations to keep the services running smoothly.

About the team
Our networking team within Amazon Project Leo owns the software layer where customer traffic enters and exits the satellite network. As Project Leo moves toward worldwide service launch, we are focused on building reliable, high-throughput data-plane and control-plane systems that deliver connectivity to customers around the globe. We value an inclusive culture where every team member's perspective strengthens our engineering decisions, and engineers here regularly expand their skills across networking, distributed systems, and cloud infrastructure. If you want to help connect underserved communities to the internet, this is the team to join.

Basic qualifications

- 3+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
- 2+ years of non-internship design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
- 1+ years of software development engineer or related occupational experience
- 1+ 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
- 1+ years of Object Oriented Design experience
- Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field
- Experience programming with at least one software programming language

Preferred qualifications

- 3+ years of full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations experience
- Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent

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, Sunnyvale - 165,200.00 - 223,600.00 USD annually