Software Development Manager, Leo AI Foundations, Amazon Leo AI Foundations

Amazon Leo is Amazon's initiative to launch a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites to provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world.

The Leo AI Foundations team builds the intelligence that will run Leo as an AI-native business. We combine applied science and engineering with Leo's domain expertise, own the shared AI foundation for the business, and lead work that spans teams and systems, so that progress in one part of Leo becomes a capability the whole business can use. Leo Lens is our command center for this AI network. It is pioneering agentic AI for diagnostics, reporting, troubleshooting and mitigating issues across our end-to-end network stack, and it automates workflows for mission operations, ecommerce and developer use cases. Through Lens, it is our vision that agents work as one system to keep the network secure and reliable, resolving failures before customers experience them, while Leo's teams keep authority over consequential decisions.

We are looking for a Software Development Manager to build and lead one of our engineering teams. You will own a roadmap in one of our tracks as we build the infrastructure for the AI that operates the network, from the agents themselves to the orchestration, knowledge access, evaluation and security controls that connect them. You will hire and grow a team of software engineers and applied scientists, partner with the domain teams that own satellites, gateways, customer terminals and network services, and deliver production systems where reliability, security and measurable impact are the bar.

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
- Build, lead and develop a team of software engineers and applied scientists, from hiring and onboarding through career growth and performance.
- Own the team's roadmap and delivery: translate the AI Foundations charter into goals, milestones and launches, and report progress and risks to senior leadership.
- Lead the technical design and architecture of agentic AI systems for Leo, covering agent development, data integration and the platform services that connect agents to Leo's knowledge and systems.
- Bring deep, current knowledge of AI, including large language models, agent frameworks, retrieval and evaluation methods, and apply it to guide the team's technical choices and to raise the AI fluency of the partner teams you work with.
- Deliver production AI systems with the evaluation, access controls and operational readiness required to act on a live network, and expand agent autonomy only as evidence shows it is safe and effective.
- Own end-to-end delivery of complex, multi-team initiatives, including infrastructure migrations and platform improvements, with domain teams who retain ownership of their services.
- Set and uphold the engineering bar for the team: design and security reviews, testing, operational excellence and on-call health.
- Make prioritization calls in an ambiguous, fast-moving environment, balancing stability against new capabilities, and communicate trade-offs clearly.

A day in the life
No two days look the same, because you are building something that has not existed before. You will set the direction for your team and remove what stands in its way. You will sit with the engineers and scientists who own Leo's satellites, gateways, customer terminals and network services, and decide with them how your team's expertise in AI can unblock them or move them faster. You will meet the operators who keep the network healthy and turn their hardest problems into the next capability Lens delivers. You will hire and grow the people who build this, and represent your work to Leo's senior leadership.

About the team
We are an AI-native team of software engineers and applied scientists in Redmond, and we move fast. We use AI in how we build, not only in what we build, so a good idea can be a working experiment the same week and a production capability the next. We think beyond how things have been done, test our ideas against real problems, and keep only what proves itself. We ship lightning fast, and we hold a high bar for quality and production readiness while doing it.

Basic Qualifications

- 3+ years of engineering team management experience
- 7+ years of engineering experience
- 8+ years of leading the definition and development of multi tier web services experience
- 1+ years of providing technical leadership and project management for all aspects of the software development lifecycle experience
- 1+ years of developing large-scale, multi-tiered distributed software systems using Java, C#, or C++ experience
- 1+ years of developing large-scale, multi-tiered distributed software systems using service-oriented architecture experience
- 1+ years of developing large-scale, multi-tiered distributed software systems using distributed programming experience
- 5+ years of Software Engineer, Software Developer, or related occupational experience
- Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field
- Knowledge of engineering practices and patterns for the full software/hardware/networks development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, certification, and livesite operations
- Experience partnering with product or program management teams
- Experience delivering production systems built on large language models or ML, including evaluation, guardrails and cost management

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience in communicating with users, other technical teams, and senior leadership to collect requirements, describe software product features, technical designs, and product strategy
- Experience in recruiting, hiring, mentoring/coaching and managing teams of Software Engineers to improve their skills, and make them more effective, product software engineers
- Experience in networking, satellite communications or ground systems

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 - 184,900.00 - 250,200.00 USD annually