Principal Engineer, Amazon Leo, Amazon Leo

Amazon Leo is an initiative to launch a constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites that will provide low-latency, high-speed broadband network connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world — from individual households to schools, hospitals, businesses, and government agencies.

The Leo Software Defined Networking (SDN) team designs, implements and operates the network virtualization stack and SDN control plane signaling. Our scope spans over beam planning, routing, and forwarding through our SDN Controller, Agents, and Applications that provides a high throughput telecom service comprised of Low Earth Orbit satellites, customer terminals, gateways, cloud services and terrestrial network infrastructure that connects into public and private networks.

We are looking for a Principal Engineer to serve as the technical leader for Network Observability solutions for an advanced global telecom service via both space and terrestrial networks. Principal Engineer is someone who can define the architecture, raise the engineering bar, and drive technical excellence across the full software stack. This role offers high autonomy to shape both the technology and the engineering culture of a team building a new category of infrastructure at planetary scale.

Key job responsibilities

-Technical Vision & Architecture: Define and drive the long-term technical vision and architectural strategy for network observability systems across Amazon's Leo network infrastructure. Design scalable, fault-tolerant observability platforms capable of ingesting, processing, and surfacing insights from massive volumes of network telemetry data in real time. Evaluate and adopt emerging technologies, frameworks, and methodologies to ensure the observability stack remains at the forefront of industry best practices.. Own architectural decisions that balance short-term delivery needs with long-term maintainability, scalability, and operational excellence

-Cross-Functional System Design: Architect end-to-end solutions that span multiple teams, services, and organizational boundaries, ensuring coherent integration across the network observability ecosystem. Drive alignment on shared data models, APIs, instrumentation standards, and telemetry pipelines across dependent systems. Influence and contribute to org-wide platform capabilities that raise the bar for all teams building on or consuming observability data

-Technical Leadership & Force Multiplication: Serve as the technical lead on the most demanding, cross-functional problems. Exert influence across multiple teams, increasing their productivity and effectiveness by sharing deep knowledge and experience. Functionally decompose complex problems into simple, straightforward solutions.

-Engineering Excellence: Define best practices for the software development lifecycle — design, implementation, testing, and operations. Drive quality metrics, code review standards, and operational excellence mechanisms across the organization.

Basic Qualifications

-10+ years of relevant engineering experience

-Experience in partnering with product and program management teams

-Experience developing and executing a software roadmap

-Deep hands-on technical expertise in software design and development

-Excellent verbal and written communication skills

-Proficiency in Java, C++, RUST, or similar systems programming languages

Preferred Qualifications

-Master’s in Computer Science or related field

-Deep understanding of data structures, algorithms, and optimization techniques for storage and index processing

-Ability to influence technical decisions across organizational boundaries

-Success mentoring senior engineers and elevating team technical capabilities

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 - 220,100.00 - 297,700.00 USD annually