Software Development Engineer, Alexa Ads

Join a team building the next generation of GenAI-powered advertising experiences. Amazon Ads is innovating AI-driven advertising on Alexa, harnessing new technology to deliver actionable and relevant ad experiences to users worldwide. As a Software Development Engineer on the Alexa Ads team, you will architect, build, and scale the core infrastructure powering a high-growth area within Amazon Ads. You'll operate at the intersection of real-time ad technology, large-scale data systems, and advanced AI — translating ambitious technical goals into production-ready systems that drive measurable business impact through rapid iteration, data-informed optimization, and engineering excellence.

Key job responsibilities
- Design & Build Scalable Ad Infrastructure: Architect and implement distributed systems for ad serving, targeting, rendering, and telemetry collection that support high concurrency with low-latency requirements.

- Drive Customer Obsession & Invent & Simplify: Deliver end-to-end solutions that enhance the Alexa user experience while driving value for advertisers. Continuously simplify complex workflows through automation, clear APIs, and robust tooling.

- Dive Deep & Data-Driven Optimization: Leverage large-scale telemetry, A/B testing frameworks, and AI-empowered analytics to optimize ad relevance, conversion rates, and system performance. Translate data insights into actionable engineering initiatives.

- Bias for Action & Operational Excellence: Take ownership of critical production systems. Build resilient, highly available services with comprehensive testing, automated CI/CD pipelines, observability, and proactive incident response. Ensure systems scale reliably as demand grows.

- Think Big & Learn & Be Curious: Explore and integrate generative AI capabilities into ad targeting, creative optimization, and user experience personalization. Collaborate cross-functionally with Alexa, Ads, AWS, Data Science, and Compliance teams to deliver next-generation advertising capabilities.

- Raise the Bar & Deliver Results: Establish engineering best practices, conduct rigorous code reviews, mentor junior engineers, and contribute to team growth, knowledge sharing, and technical strategy.

A day in the life
As an SDE on the Alexa Ads team, your work spans the full engineering lifecycle — from technical design and prototyping to production deployment, monitoring, and continuous optimization. You'll architect scalable ad infrastructure, write production-grade code, and run data-driven experiments that directly impact the customer experience at scale. You'll lead architecture reviews, participate in rigorous code evaluations, and collaborate with product, data science, and partner teams to ship features that balance innovation with operational reliability. Expect to analyze telemetry, troubleshoot production incidents, and iterate based on real-time signals. You'll also establish engineering best practices, mentor team members, and drive initiatives that elevate system performance and code quality.

About the team
Based in Irvine, CA, the Alexa Ads team works at the intersection of AI-powered personal assistants and advertising technology. We're building new advertising infrastructure — where mission-critical engineering meets a fast-moving team with the backing of Amazon's scale and resources. Our stack spans low-latency compute, real-time ad interactivity, and integrations across Alexa, LLM, AWS, Amazon Ads, and third-party service providers. We build systems designed for long-term scale. Every sprint, experiment, and deployment pushes us toward delivering innovative advertising experiences that delight customers. If you thrive in high-autonomy environments, enjoy tackling technical ambiguity, and want to make a meaningful impact on a high-priority initiative within Amazon, you'll find your pace here.

Basic Qualifications

- 3+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
- 2+ years of non-internship design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
- Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field
- Experience programming with at least one software programming language

Preferred Qualifications

- 3+ 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.

Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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, CA, Irvine - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually