Amazon
Mid
Cleared AWS SDE supporting Aurora, DynamoDB, EMR, OpenSearch, RDS and Redshift infrastructure for government customers requiring TS/SCI clearance
This role is in AWS Infrastructure Services (AIS) in Herndon, VA, working directly with Amazon's largest and most demanding customers on its massively-scaled database services (Aurora, DynamoDB, EMR, OpenSearch, RDS, Redshift), and requires the candidate to currently hold an active TS/SCI clearance and be willing to obtain a TS/SCI with polygraph. Basic qualifications call for 3+ years of professional software development and 2+ years of design/architecture experience, placing this at mid-level, with heavy emphasis on Linux/networking depth and deep technical troubleshooting rather than pure feature-building.
Step into this interview
Free · a live voice mock calibrated to this exact role
Likely format
Amazon's standard SDE loop: online coding assessment, then phone/virtual onsite rounds mixing coding, systems/networking depth, and Leadership Principles behavioral interviews (STAR format), per Amazon's well-known public process; clearance verification is handled alongside/after the technical loop.
What this interview tests
- Active TS/SCI security clearance (hard requirement)
- Deep Linux and networking troubleshooting fundamentals
- Root-cause analysis and technical post-mortems on distributed infrastructure
- Coding in Java (tooling) and/or Python (systems problems)
- Operating at massive scale (thousands of devices/servers)
- Amazon Leadership Principles behavioral interviewing (STAR)
Common question themes
Confirm current TS/SCI clearance status and willingness to obtain TS/SCI with polygraph
Walk through a root-cause investigation and post-mortem for a production distributed-systems issue
Linux/networking fundamentals: diagnosing a degraded service across servers and network layers
Coding: a Java tooling problem or a Python systems-automation problem
Designing or streamlining a process to operate reliably across a very large device/server fleet
STAR: Think Big and Earn Trust stories tied to large-scale customer-facing infrastructure work
Related interviews
Amazon
Mid
Software Development Engineer II, Amazon Smart Vehicles
Amazon
Mid
Software Development Engineer, Ads AI Core Infra
Amazon
Mid
Software Engineer II, Leo Regulus
Figma
Mid
Software Engineer, Traffic
Mid
Software Engineer, Payments Data Platform
Senior