SDM - Photos Alexa Experience, Amazon Photos On Devices Team

Are you ready to revolutionize how millions of customers interact with their personal photos through voice? We're seeking a Software Development Manager to own the end-to-end voice experience stack for Amazon Photos, bridging the gap between Alexa endpoints and the backend services that power seamless customer experiences. You'll lead the orchestration of voice, touch, and agent interactions across the Photos ecosystem, solving complex technical challenges at the intersection of Alexa and Photos.

This is more than a management role, it's an opportunity to reimagine architecture that has been optimized for delivery but needs evolution for long-term scalability. You'll drive innovation in how customers interact with their photos across all Alexa endpoints including devices, web, and mobile. Your work will directly impact how customers perceive and interact with their most personal content, making this a stage for breakthrough innovation in voice-enabled experiences.

Key job responsibilities

• Define and execute the technical vision for voice orchestration between Alexa systems, Photos backend services, and Alexa endpoints, ensuring low-latency, deterministic interactions across all customer touchpoints
• Lead the backend modularization initiative to create clear component boundaries, reduce operational overhead, and enable faster feature delivery across the Photos voice experience stack
• Build and nurture a high-performing team of 10+ engineers through strategic hiring, performance management, mentoring, and career development while fostering an inclusive culture of innovation
• Collaborate with Product Managers, Software Development Managers across Photos and Alexa, and Technical Program Managers to balance tactical delivery with strategic architectural improvements
• Drive architectural decisions for end-to-end intent orchestration, partnering with cross-functional teams to migrate APL components and establish unified agent architecture that scales across devices, web, and mobile endpoints

A day in the life

You'll start your day reviewing system metrics and orchestrating priorities across your team of engineers. Mornings often involve design reviews where you challenge technical approaches and guide architectural decisions for voice intent handling. You'll meet with Product Managers to align on roadmap priorities and with peer Software Development Managers from Photos and Alexa teams to resolve cross-team dependencies. Afternoons are dedicated to one-on-ones where you coach engineers on technical growth and career development. You'll also identify resourcing challenges and work with Technical Program Managers to ensure your team has the support needed to deliver high-impact features that enhance how customers interact with their photos through voice.

About the team

Our mission is to enable customers to discover, control, and personalize Photos on devices through fast, reliable voice and direct interactions. We own end-to-end intent orchestration across Alexa and Photos systems, acting as the control plane that routes customer requests from voice, touch, remote, and text inputs to the appropriate backend services. We ensure interactions are low-latency, deterministic, and predictable across all devices.

We're focused on building a unified agent architecture that provides consistent Alexa experiences regardless of endpoint. Our 2026 strategic initiatives include the bcakend modularization effort to create better team autonomy and the migration of APL components into on-device applications. This allows us to invest more deeply in voice orchestration innovation. We collaborate closely with backend, device platform, front-end teams to mitigate dependencies and deliver seamless experiences. Join us in shaping the future of how customers experience their personal content through voice technology.

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
• Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field
• Experience with voice interface, natural language or multimodal design
• Experience designing, building, operating, and managing large-scale distributed systems or web services
• Experience shipping software along side embedded or resource-constrained device platforms teams.

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