Software Development Engineer II, EC2 Blackfoot Peering Team

AWS Infrastructure Services owns the design, planning, delivery, and operation of all AWS global infrastructure. In other words, we’re the people who keep the cloud running. We support all AWS data centers and all of the servers, storage, networking, power, and cooling equipment that ensure our customers have continual access to the innovation they rely on. We work on the most challenging problems, with thousands of variables impacting the supply chain — and we’re looking for talented people who want to help. You’ll join a diverse team of software, hardware, and network engineers, supply chain specialists, security experts, operations managers, and other vital roles. You’ll collaborate with people across AWS to help us deliver the highest standards for safety and security while providing seemingly infinite capacity at the lowest possible cost for our customers. And you’ll experience an inclusive culture that welcomes bold ideas and empowers you to own them to completion. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Networking is looking for a Software Development Engineer II to help build forwarding and encapsulation services that power large-scale networking within AWS. Your work will directly impact millions of customers who rely on EC2 every day. We are growing fast and looking for kernel and embedded C programmers who can deliver ultra-high performance. Our goal is to process many millions of packets per second on embedded CPU cores. This requires implementing highly optimized data structures and low-level tuning to our hardware. If you have strong experience in C or C++ and a passion for systems software engineering such as kernel or embedded development, this is a unique opportunity to join us in building the platform that will underpin all new EC2 Virtual Private Cloud features in the years to come. Dataplane engineers work on a lower level of the software stack that directly interacts with hardware. They require knowledge of programming languages optimized for lower-level work such as C, C++, Rust, and Assembly Language, along with the ability to read a hardware specification for a network card and optimize code to run on it. Key job responsibilities - Design and implement high-performance forwarding and encapsulation services in C and C++, optimizing data structures and tuning code for embedded CPU cores processing millions of packets per second. - Collaborate with hardware and software engineers across EC2 Networking to translate hardware specifications into performant dataplane code, ensuring scalability and reliability for AWS customers. - Participate in architecture decisions, design reviews, and code reviews, providing meaningful feedback to teammates and mentoring junior engineers on best practices for low-level systems development. Own features across the full development lifecycle — from scoping and design through implementation, testing, deployment, and operations — while identifying root causes of operational issues and driving permanent fixes. A day in the life You might start your morning investigating a performance regression on a new network card, profiling packet-processing paths to find the bottleneck. After a design review with your team, you could spend the afternoon writing and testing optimized C code for a new encapsulation feature. You will regularly sync with hardware engineers and partner teams across EC2 to align on upcoming card capabilities and feature requirements, balancing hands-on coding with collaborative planning. About the team Our team is dedicated to supporting new members. We have a broad mix of experience levels and Amazon tenures, and we are building an environment that celebrates knowledge sharing and mentorship. Senior engineers on the team enjoy mentoring through one-on-one sessions and thorough, kind code reviews. We assign projects based on what will help each engineer develop new skills and take on greater challenges over time. With access to Principal and Distinguished Engineers across EC2 and AWS, there are many opportunities to grow.