Software Development Manager, Builder Productivity

Amazon is investing heavily in building a world class advertising business and we are responsible for defining and delivering a collection of self-service performance advertising products that drive discovery and sales. Our products are strategically important to our Retail and Marketplace businesses driving long term growth. We deliver billions of ad impressions and millions of clicks daily and are breaking fresh ground to create world-class products. We are highly motivated, collaborative and fun-loving with an entrepreneurial spirit and bias for action. With a broad mandate to experiment and innovate, we are growing at an unprecedented rate with a seemingly endless range of new opportunities.

Join our Builder Productivity team and lead engineering efforts that transform how 5,000+ Ads engineers build, deploy, and operate software. As a Software Development Manager, you'll assemble and mentor a team of engineers to deliver AI-native development tools and agentic systems that compress multi-team feature delivery from months to weeks. Your work will directly impact the productivity of every engineer across Amazon Ads.

You will partner with executive stakeholders to drive the transformation from AI-assisted development (humans use AI tools) to AI-native development (agents autonomously discover, design, code, test, and deploy with human-in-the-loop for critical decisions). You'll own systems that scale impact to thousands of engineers across dozens of organizations.


Key job responsibilities
- Assemble and lead an engineering team to solve challenging technical problems in AI-native development, including agent orchestration, domain-specific knowledge indexing, and autonomous code generation, while fostering an environment where team members grow and contribute meaningfully
- Drive measurable impact on Ads builder productivity at scale: code review velocity, deployment frequency, time-to-production, and cross-team coordination overhead for 5,000+ engineers across Ads
- Partner with executive stakeholders across Ads organizations to evangelize AI-native development practices, secure shared goals for adoption, and drive the transition from manual coordination to agent-driven orchestration
- Evangelize and champion AI-native development across AIGC: run demos, office hours, publish success stories, and drive adoption through influence rather than authority
- Partner with cross-functional stakeholders including product, platform, and partner engineering teams to define requirements, scope technical solutions, and prioritize work across a broad surface area
- Make data-driven decisions by analyzing system performance, adoption metrics, and builder feedback to inform product direction and operational improvements
- Communicate clearly and persuasively with engineers, peers, and leadership through written documentation (PRFAQs, OP1 narratives, design docs), presentations, and discussions to align on strategy and execution.

A day in the life
As a Software Development Manager, you will assemble and lead a team of engineers to solve challenging technical and business problems. You are a customer-obsessed technical leader with sharp business acumen and a track record of building and growing engineering teams. You ship software and own the day-to-day maintenance and evolution of systems that serve the needs of our large and growing base of advertisers. We are looking for a leader who can thrive in a startup environment, thinks big, can move fast, and wants to change the way customers use data to drive business success. If you are passionate about creating the future, come join us as we work hard, have fun, and make history.

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
- 8+ years of leading the definition and development of multi tier web services 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

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

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