Senior Software Development Engineer, Software Defined Network Control Plane, Amazon Leo

Amazon Leo is building a constellation of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites to deliver low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world. With hundreds of satellites already in orbit and the service now in beta, we are scaling rapidly and building new features across the network. As a Senior Software Development Engineer on the Software Defined Networking (SDN) Control Plane team, you will lead the design and development of the network control plane that orchestrates traffic across satellites, customer terminals, gateways, and terrestrial infrastructure. You will tackle multi-dimensional problems at global, set technical direction for your team, and collaborate closely with hardware teams, scientists, embedded software engineers, and mission operations to shape how our network performs and grows.

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 U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Key job responsibilities
- Design and deliver scalable, high-throughput, low-latency services for the SDN control plane, defining conventions and technical solutions that guide the team's engineering direction.
- Build link planning, routing, and control plane delivery services in Rust for network nodes spanning satellite and terrestrial infrastructure.
- Develop highly available control plane services along with the operational tooling, dashboards, and observability features needed to monitor and maintain system health.
- Collaborate with hardware teams, scientists, embedded software engineers, mission planning, and mission operations to ensure the control plane integrates cleanly across the broader Leo network.
- Drive software quality across the full lifecycle — from technical design and code review through testing, deployment, and on-call operational support — while mentoring other engineers on best practices.

A day in the life
Your week balances focused, heads-down engineering with regular collaboration. You participate in standups, design reviews, operations reviews, and weekly demos where the team shares progress and gathers feedback. Between those touchpoints you work independently on roadmap-driven projects — designing control plane features, writing and reviewing code, or building observability tooling that keeps the network running smoothly. Because the SDN sits at the center of the Leo network, you regularly connect with partner teams in hardware, embedded software, and mission operations to align on interfaces and resolve cross-system challenges.

About the team
The SDN Control Plane team builds and operates the brain of the Leo network. We own the distributed systems that route traffic across a growing constellation of LEO satellites, customer terminals, gateways, and terrestrial links. Our work directly determines the quality of service our customers experience.

We are a collaborative, roadmap-driven team that values thoughtful design and operational rigor. You will receive guidance from peers and engineering leadership, and you will have the opportunity to grow your technical leadership skills by setting architectural direction and influencing decisions that span multiple teams.

Basic Qualifications

- 5+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
- 5+ years of programming with at least one software programming language experience
- 5+ years of leading design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
- Experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team

Preferred Qualifications

- 5+ 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.

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, Redmond - 168,100.00 - 227,400.00 USD annually