Principal Engineer, EC2

Overview

As a Principal Engineer on EC2 in the Accelerated Nitro team, you will have the opportunity to make a significant impact on the core infrastructure powering Amazon Web Services. You will be at the forefront of developing the next generation of EC2 instance families, driving innovations in virtualization, hardware acceleration, and cloud computing.

This role is exclusively based in our Berlin, Germany office; the successful candidate must be willing and able to be physically present in the office every day.

In This Role, You Will

• Lead the Development of Core EC2 Capabilities: Spearhead the design and architecture of new EC2 instance features, from CPU scheduling and memory management to device emulation and PCIe subsystem integration. Your technical guidance will shape the roadmap and implementation across multiple global teams.
• Advance Virtualization Security: Drive security-focused initiatives that enhance the integrity and resilience of our virtualization platform, ensuring the highest standards of data protection for our customers.
• Mentor and Grow Engineering Talent: Leverage your deep technical expertise to develop other engineers, providing architecture reviews, design proposals, and hands‑on coding support to elevate the skills of the broader team.
• Influence the Future of Cloud Computing: Contribute your thinking to shape the technological direction of EC2 instances and features, advocating for innovative solutions that deliver exceptional performance and value to our customers.

Key Job Responsibilities

• Deliver new EC2 instance platforms by giving technical guidance to multiple teams across different time zones and locations, and working closely with product managers and technical program managers.
• Drive virtualization‑related security initiatives.
• Design and architect new EC2 instance features and deliver them by growing other engineers.
• Influence and contribute to the technological roadmap of EC2 instances and features, through compelling customer justification.
• Improve the efficiency of the organization by offering technical solutions to operational bottlenecks.

A Day in the Life

• Technical Leadership: Oversee strategic projects while collaborating with internal teams, external partners, and customers to provide technical vision for next‑generation EC2 instance types and hypervisor features.
• Design and Innovation: Create prototypes that validate concepts and establish timelines, develop design documents that guide engineering efforts across organizations.
• Hands‑on Engineering: Actively participate in development, debugging, and release management to deliver customer value on schedule.
• Strategic Planning: Partner with management on progress reporting and future planning to effectively prioritize initiatives across the organization.

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s degree in computer science or equivalent.
• Experience in networking, multi‑threaded applications, interprocess communication, and complex software development.
• Experience optimizing for short‑term execution while planning for long‑term technical capabilities.
• Experience developing an operating system kernel or production hypervisor.
• Proficiency in at least one CPU architecture, such as x86 or ARM.
• Experience growing other engineers and working in diverse teams.
• Excellent English verbal and written communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience influencing groups outside their own VP from architecture perspective.
• Experience creating architectural vision.
• Experience enhancing the security posture of a kernel or hypervisor.
• Experience resolving complex issues in the interactions between software and hardware, including working with PCIe internals.
• Proficient in both x86 and ARM CPU architectures.

EEO Statement

Amazon is an equal opportunities employer. We make recruiting decisions based on your experience and skills. We value your passion to discover, invent, simplify, and build. Protecting your privacy and the security of your data is a longstanding top priority for Amazon.

Please consult our Privacy Notice here to know more about how we collect, use and transfer the personal data of our candidates.