The posting
Software Development Engineer — DynamoDB Indexing
Amazon DynamoDB is a serverless, distributed NoSQL database that delivers single-digit millisecond performance at virtually any scale. DynamoDB's indexing infrastructure powers Global Secondary Indexes (GSIs), enabling customers to efficiently query their data across alternate access patterns without managing additional infrastructure.
We are looking for a Software Development Engineer II to help design, build, and operate the distributed indexing infrastructure at the heart of DynamoDB. You will work on problems at the intersection of distributed systems, stream processing, storage engines, and large-scale data replication — ensuring that secondary indexes remain consistent, performant, and highly available as the underlying table data changes continuously.
The role includes designing and evolving the index replication pipeline that propagates mutations from base tables to secondary indexes in near-real time; building index lifecycle mechanisms that handle creation, backfill, compaction, rebalancing, and recovery across partitioned datasets at massive scale; and optimizing the storage, query, and cost efficiency of secondary indexes across all DynamoDB partitions and regions.
You will help determine how indexes are created, maintained, scaled, and recovered while the underlying DynamoDB data continues to change at millions of requests per second. You will also shape how indexing infrastructure integrates with DynamoDB's partitioning, replication, admission control, and query-processing systems — delivering predictable performance across latency, throughput, freshness, availability, and cost.
This is an opportunity to shape the future of DynamoDB's indexing capabilities — from foundational architecture through customer launch and operation at DynamoDB scale.
Key Job Responsibilities
- Design and implement distributed index replication infrastructure that propagates base-table mutations to Global Secondary Indexes with low latency and high fidelity.
- Build and optimize the Log Propagator pipeline, including log streaming, checkpointing, session management, admission control, and failure recovery across thousands of partitions.
- Develop index lifecycle mechanisms covering index creation, backfill from existing table data, incremental updates, compaction, partition splits and merges, rebalancing, and deletion — all while the table continues to serve live traffic.
- Ensure that secondary indexes remain consistent with the base table under concurrent writes, partition movements, leader elections, and failure scenarios, with well-defined freshness and consistency semantics.
- Integrate indexing infrastructure with DynamoDB's distributed storage, partitioning, replication, and query-processing systems, including StorageNode, Partition Manager, and the control plane.
- Design and build mechanisms for index availability and recovery, including handling degraded partitions, stuck replication sessions, and automated remediation of index lag.
- Optimize tradeoffs among replication latency, write amplification, storage efficiency, throughput, memory usage, and operational cost across the indexing fleet.
- Build observability, alarming, and operational tooling for the indexing pipeline — enabling rapid diagnosis and resolution of replication lag, backfill progress, and partition-level health.
- Drive operational excellence across the indexing fleet, including patching, deployment safety, capacity planning, and on-call processes for a Tier-1 service.
- 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 - 1+ years of software development engineer or related occupational experience - 1+ years of designing and developing large-scale, multi-tiered, multi-threaded, embedded or distributed software applications, tools, systems, and services using: C#, C++, Java, or Perl experience - 1+ years of Object Oriented Design 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
- 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.
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 - 143,700.00 - 194,400.00 USD annually
