The posting
Are you passionate about building the next generation of fully managed database migration services? AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) has migrated more than 1.8 million database workloads to AWS, and with nearly half of enterprise databases still on-premises, the mission is far from complete. We are building a new, distributed migration engine from the ground up — purpose-built to make enterprise-scale migrations simple, fast, and zero-configuration. We are looking for a Software Development Manager to lead a team of engineers designing and delivering this engine for customers migrating from commercial databases (SQL Server, Oracle) to Amazon Aurora and RDS PostgreSQL.
As an SDM on this team, you will own the design, delivery, and operation of a next-generation migration platform that replaces manual configuration with intelligent automation. Your team will design pluggable, horizontally scalable components that handle terabyte-scale workloads without customer tuning — from change data capture and data validation to automated cutover orchestration. You will drive decisions on distributed systems architecture, data consistency guarantees, and how to make complex migrations feel effortless for customers. When issues arise in the current production system, your team's goal is not just resolution — it's designing the systemic fix that ensures the problem never recurs, building reliability into the architecture rather than patching symptoms.
This role requires a leader who can balance innovation velocity with production reliability — shipping new capabilities to customers while maintaining the quality bar for a service operating at scale across hundreds of thousands of migrations worldwide. You'll make trade-off decisions daily, drive a culture of engineering ownership and operational excellence, and empower your team to leverage AI tooling to multiply their effectiveness.
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) is part of AWS Utility Computing (UC), which provides product innovations — from foundational services such as Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2, to consistently released new product innovations that continue to set AWS apart in the industry. As a member of the DMS organization, you'll support the development and management of database migration and replication services that help enterprises accelerate their move to the cloud.
Key job responsibilities Lead a team of 6–10 SDEs designing and delivering a next-generation, distributed database migration engine — from architecture through production, across source engines including SQL Server and Oracle migrating to Aurora PostgreSQL and RDS PostgreSQL. Own end-to-end feature delivery for the migration platform: data capture, change replication, data validation, automated cutover orchestration, and pre-migration assessments — shipping capabilities that eliminate manual configuration for customers. Drive architecture decisions on distributed systems challenges: horizontal scaling, fault isolation, data consistency guarantees, and pluggable engine-specific components that support new source/target pairs with minimal incremental effort. Partner with Principal Engineers and senior leadership on platform evolution — including compute substrate decisions, cross-team integrations with Aurora and Zero-ETL, and long-term migration service strategy. Own release quality and deployment cadence for a service operating at scale across hundreds of thousands of production migrations, balancing feature velocity with fleet stability. Manage high-profile customer engagements for enterprise-scale migrations, translating customer pain into engineering priorities and ensuring the product solves problems systemically rather than through one-off fixes. Make prioritization decisions across security compliance, customer delivery, and product roadmap — clearly communicating trade-offs to leadership. Build and retain a high-performing team in a complex technical domain, investing in onboarding, mentorship, and career growth. Drive adoption of AI-powered engineering practices (autonomous issue detection, AI-assisted operations, automated test generation) to multiply team effectiveness. Own operational health metrics — deployment success, escalation rates, and customer satisfaction — with the goal of designing reliability into the architecture rather than managing incidents reactively.
A day in the life You might start the day reviewing your team's progress on a new distributed component — discussing design trade-offs for how the engine handles terabyte-scale LOBs without memory pressure. Mid-morning you join a customer deep-dive with an enterprise migrating thousands of databases to Aurora PostgreSQL, translating their pain points into product requirements. Before lunch you're making a prioritization call between a security compliance deadline and a customer-blocking issue, working with your PE to find a path that addresses both. After lunch you're reviewing architecture proposals for a pluggable connector that will onboard a new source engine with minimal incremental effort, then coaching an SDE through their first complex customer escalation — not just fixing the immediate issue, but identifying the systemic change that prevents it from recurring. You end the day in a planning session for the next release, deciding which capabilities ship to customers and which reliability improvements need to land first — always balancing velocity with quality.
About the team About AWS
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- 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 in engineering team management - Experience in engineering - Experience in leading the definition and development of multi tier web services - Experience partnering with product and program management teams
- 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
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