Sr. Systems Development Engineer in Melbourne

Applicants must be Australian citizens and hold or be eligible to obtain an Australian Government Security Clearance with the ability to successfully complete an Organisational Suitability Assessment. The AWS Region Services team combines AWS global cloud leadership with Australian security expertise to deliver highly secure, scalable environments for sensitive workloads. We’re creating innovative ways to use cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning while maintaining the highest standards of security and operational excellence.

The Engineering organisation within Region Services is structured across core capability pillars: Compute & Machine Learning, Security Identity & Compliance, Storage & Databases, and a growing capability domain. Collectively these pillars encompass a team of varying technical skillsets, including Engineers, Technical Program Managers, and Subject Matter Experts, organised into focused sub-teams. This is an opportunity to make a lasting impact on Australia’s digital future. You’ll work with AWS services, implement innovative solutions, and help customers succeed in their most important missions. We’re committed to helping our builders grow through continuous learning, mentoring, and collaboration with industry experts.

Key job responsibilities:

• You’ll be the engineer who keeps one of the world's largest cloud providers running while simultaneously making it better.
• Your dual mandate — operational excellence today and engineering innovation for tomorrow — means no two weeks look the same.
• You’ll own the health and reliability of critical AWS software systems, responding to operational events with the calm precision of someone who understands the architecture end-to-end.
• You’ll identify patterns in operational burden and engineer them away, building automation and tooling that gives your team back hours, days, and weeks.
• Your responsibilities will span the full lifecycle of complex distributed systems.
• You’ll design and implement solutions that reduce operational toil at scale, turning manual processes into self-healing, automated workflows.
• You’ll dive deep into unfamiliar technologies and emerge with insights that drive meaningful improvements.
• You’ll collaborate across capability pillars, bringing your systems expertise to bear on challenges in compute, security, storage, and beyond.
• You’ll mentor fellow engineers, contribute to architectural decisions that shape the programme's future, and champion operational best practices.
• When incidents arise, you’ll lead with clarity and purpose.

A day in the life:

• Your morning begins with a quick scan of system health dashboards.
• A minor anomaly catches your eye; you investigate, trace it to a configuration drift, and push a fix before it becomes a customer-impacting event.
• By mid-morning, you’re deep in code, working on the automation framework.
• After lunch, you join a cross-pillar design review.
• Later in the afternoon, you pair with a newer team member who’s working through their first operational deep-dive.
• Before you wrap up, you update your team's engineering backlog with a new item.

About the team:

The Region Services team redefines the way AWS designs, builds, and operates AWS regions to enable new AWS Cloud Infrastructure and Services offerings to customers across every industry and of every size, including start-ups, enterprises, and public sector organisations.

Diverse experiences:

Amazon values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the preferred qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply.

Why AWS:

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped innovating.

Work/life balance:

We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home.

Inclusive team culture:

AWS values curiosity and connection. Our employee-led and company-sponsored affinity groups promote inclusion and empower our people.

Mentorship and career growth:

We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer.

Basic qualifications:

• 5+ years of deploying and operating in a Linux/Unix environment experience
• 5+ years of systems development in an IT or data center environment experience
• 3+ years of systems design, software development, operations, automation, and process improvement experience
• 3+ years of programming with at least one modern language such as C++, C#, Java, Python, Golang, PowerShell, Ruby experience
• Experience leading the design, build and deployment of complex and performant software solutions in production

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience with distributed systems at scale
• Experience in mentoring, leading, or managing more junior engineers

Acknowledgement of country:

In the spirit of reconciliation Amazon acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community.

IDE statement:

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.