Software Development Manager, AWS IoT (Physical AI)

As part of the AWS Applied AI Solutions organization, we have a vision to provide business applications, leveraging Amazon’s unique experience and expertise, that are used by millions of companies worldwide to manage day-to-day operations. We will accomplish this by accelerating our customers’ businesses through delivery of intuitive and differentiated technology solutions that solve enduring business challenges. We blend vision with curiosity and Amazon’s real-world experience to build opinionated, turnkey solutions. Where customers prefer to buy over build, we become their trusted partner with solutions that are no-brainers to buy and easy to use.


AWS IoT is building the infrastructure to deliver AI from the cloud to the physical world. The Physical AI team develops services that provision, deploy, monitor, and secure AI software across processors inside autonomous machines, including robots, vehicles, drones, agricultural equipment, and industrial workcells, operating in environments with limited or no cloud connectivity. We are looking for a Software Development Manager to build and lead the team behind edge-first fleet management for Physical AI. Your team owns software that runs on embedded processors inside autonomous machines and the cloud control plane that orchestrates them, coordinating deployments across hierarchical, heterogeneous processor topologies that often operate entirely offline. You will lead engineers writing production C++ and Rust for local artifact caching, cryptographic verification, peer discovery over link-local networks, and coordinated over-the-air updates across nested processor hierarchies, and you will own the cloud services that track fleet state when the fleet is not reachable. Physical AI is a new business for AWS, so you will define the platform while you build it, hire the team that builds it, and decide what the team does not build. This is a rare chance to lead where cloud services meet physical machines, shipping software that keeps autonomous systems running safely in the real world.

The Physical AI team within AWS IoT is focused on delivering intelligence to every processor inside autonomous machines at scale. We build the services that provision, deploy, and secure AI software across robots, vehicles, drones, and industrial equipment worldwide. Our work sits at the intersection of cloud infrastructure and embedded systems, and we partner closely with other AWS IoT teams to push what is possible in disconnected, resource-constrained environments. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where every engineer's voice matters and new ideas are welcomed.


Key job responsibilities
Lead a team of cloud and embedded engineers building the edge runtime and control plane for Physical AI fleet management, including artifact caching, peer discovery, coordinated OTA across nested processor hierarchies, and fleet state reconciliation after long disconnection.

Hire, develop, and retain engineers from L4 through L6, and build a team where cloud engineers ramp on embedded systems and embedded engineers ramp on distributed systems.

Own the roadmap from ambiguous problem statements through launch, and scale the platform from early adopters to global fleets of autonomous machines across every AWS region.

Drive deployment reliability on hardware that is physically accessible and routinely offline, where a failed update reaches machines that move and rollback has to work without a network round trip.

Own the security architecture for software and model distribution, including signed artifacts, secure OTA (TUF and Uptane), and hardware root of trust (TPM, secure boot, attestation) on devices an attacker can hold.

Own operational excellence for physical fleets, including oncall, alarming, release discipline, and the version and security posture of every processor in the field.

Partner with client teams across AWS IoT, applied science, and robotics, and with silicon and OEM partners whose attestation and boot primitives the security model depends on.

Set the technical bar through architecture and design review, and hold decisions on state, consistency, and failure handling across tiers that cannot see each other.

A day in the life
You might start your morning reviewing a design for coordinated OTA across nested processors and pushing back on how it handles a gateway that reconnects with stale state. After standup you could run a hiring loop debrief, then meet a silicon partner to close an attestation dependency that gates the next release. In the afternoon you might sit with two engineers to cut the scope of a workstream that is trending late, write the update that tells your leadership why, and end the day with real autonomous hardware to see what the fleet actually reports.

About the team
ABOUT AWS:

Diverse Experiences
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Basic Qualifications

- 3+ years of engineering team management experience
- 7+ years of working directly within engineering teams experience
- 3+ years of designing or architecting (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
- 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 with systems software, embedded Linux, or software that ships to devices

Preferred Qualifications

- 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 managing teams that own both cloud services and embedded or on-device layers
- Experience with edge AI and ML inference deployment, including model compatibility and versioning at fleet scale
- Experience with secure OTA architecture (TUF, Uptane) and hardware root of trust (TPM, HSM, secure boot, attestation)
- Experience with AWS IoT, AWS IoT Greengrass, or other cloud-based device management services

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, Seattle - 184,900.00 - 250,200.00 USD annually