Contract Amazon Software Engineer Jobs in Washington, DC

If you thrive in a fast-paced, innovative environment and are interested in pushing the boundaries of what's possible with big data, cloud computing, and security analytics, Amazon Security Platform Engineering is the place for you. We support a suite of services and products to ingest, optimize and query petabyte scale datasets efficiently, and enable critical security use cases such as incident response, security analytics, threat-hunting, and low-latency detection.
Successful candidates for this position will possess:
Strong software engineering fundamentals, including expertise in object-oriented design, algorithms, and data structures
Experience building and operating scalable, fault-tolerant, distributed systems
Proficiency in Java, Scala or Python with a solid understanding of multi-threading and memory management
Knowledge of big data compute engines such as open table formats like Apache Iceberg, and Apache Spark, Trino, Flink.

Excellent verbal and written communication skills
Self-motivation and the ability to deliver high-quality results in a fast-paced environment.
Key job responsibilities
Build and support Amazon Security's Data Lake, consisting of services for data cataloging, optimization, compaction, re-organization, and indexing at petabyte scale.
Drive technical vision and contribute to the roadmap for systems that manage petabyte-scale data catalogs supporting Apache Iceberg, AWS Glue, Parquet, and other formats.
Design and implement distributed systems for data optimization that balance multiple latency scenarios from minute-level batch detections to month-spanning threat hunting queries.
Modernize security intelligence platform's data catalog and governance services to provide customers with rule-based access controls and fine-grained data access.
Build and support query platform services for query scheduling, routing, auditing, and engine built on Apache Spark.
Optimize data ingestion and cataloging systems that handle petabytes of data.
Partner with data engineers and security teams across AWS, Amazon Stores, Digital, and other business units to understand requirements and deliver platform capabilities.
Uphold software engineering best practices, code quality standards, and operational excellence.
Explore and build AI driven data discovery capabilities using catalog metadata to help security analysts find relevant datasets faster.
Work with AI/ML powered developer tools across the full SDLC, from AI assisted code reviews and design to agentic operational response
About the team
Why Amazon Security?
At Amazon, security is central to maintaining customer trust and delivering delightful customer experiences. Our organization is responsible for creating and maintaining a high bar for security across all of Amazon's products and services

We offer talented security professionals the chance to accelerate their careers with opportunities to build experience in a wide variety of areas including cloud, devices, retail, entertainment, healthcare, operations, and physical stores.
* Diverse Experiences: Amazon Security values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn't followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don't let it stop you from applying.
* Inclusive Team Culture: In Amazon Security, it's in our nature to learn and be curious

Ongoing DEI events and learning experiences inspire us to continue learning and to embrace our uniqueness. Addressing the toughest security challenges requires that we seek out and celebrate a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and voices.
* Training & Career Growth: We're continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth's Best Employer. That's why you'll find endless knowledge-sharing, training, and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.
* Work/Life Balance: We value work-life harmony

Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why flexible work hours and arrangements are part of our culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there's nothing we can't achieve.