Software Development Manager Jobs in Columbia, MD

We're looking for an experienced Software Development Manager to lead the engineering team building AI-native tools that help tens of thousands of Amazon builders work backwards from customer needs. This is your opportunity to shape how product teams across Amazon approach product ideation and development, making it easier to build products customers love.
You'll lead a team of engineers building innovative multi-agentic AI systems that bring customer empathy directly into the product development process. Your team's work spans the full stack, from designing agentic architectures that orchestrate specialized AI agents, to building intuitive web experiences that make knowledge accessible when users need it most.
This role offers the rare combination of startup energy within Amazon's scale. You'll operate with significant autonomy to define technical strategy, make architectural decisions, and build solutions where both the business problem and technology approach require innovation. Your team will ship frequently, iterate based on user feedback, and pioneer capabilities that don't exist elsewhere.
The ideal candidate brings deep technical expertise in building scalable generative AI systems, proven ability to lead high-performing engineering teams, and thrives in ambiguous environments where they can work backwards from customer problems to define what needs to be built. You'll partner closely with product, science, and UX design to deliver solutions that reach teams across all Amazon businesses.
If you're energized by the challenge of building AI-powered products that change how Amazon builds products, and want to lead a team that's defining the future of customer-centric development at scale, we want to hear from you.
Key job responsibilities
- Lead end-to-end architecture, design, implementation, testing, and deployment of AI-native tools, making critical technical decisions that balance innovation speed with long-term scalability
- Define and drive the technical vision and roadmap for your team, working backwards from customer problems where both business requirements and technology approaches may be unclear
- Build, mentor, and manage a high-performing team of engineers across multiple levels, fostering a culture of innovation, customer obsession, and technical excellence
- Own all operational metrics and system health for your team's products, establishing mechanisms to monitor progress and drive continuous improvement
- Partner effectively with product management, science, and design teams to translate ambiguous customer needs into concrete technical solutions
- Drive engineering operational excellence across full-stack development and generative AI applications, establishing best practices for code quality, testing, security, and deployment
- Serve as the primary technical point of contact for your products, managing expectations and priorities across cross-functional stakeholders and leadership
- Recruit, hire, and develop top engineering talent, creating clear career development paths and providing coaching that helps your team grow
- Champion experimentation and rapid iteration, creating an environment where your team can ship frequently, learn from user feedback, and continuously improve customer experiences
About the team
Customer Experience and Business Trends (CXBT) is an organization made up of a diverse suite of functions dedicated to deeply understanding and improving customer experience, globally. We are a team of builders that develop products, services, ideas, and various ways of leveraging data to influence product and service offerings - for almost every business at Amazon - for every customer (e.g., consumers, developers, sellers/brands, employees, investors, streamers, gamers).
Our approach is based on determining the customer need, along with problem solving, and we work backwards from there. We use technical and non-technical approaches and stay aware of industry and business trends. We are a global team, made up of a diverse set of profiles, skills, and backgrounds - including: Product Managers, Software Developers, Computer Vision experts, Solutions Architects, Data Scientists, Business Intelligence Engineers, Business Analysts, Risk Managers, and more.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- 3+ years of engineering team management experience
- 7+ years of working directly within engineering teams experience
- 3+ years of designing or architecting (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
- 8+ years of leading the definition and development of multi tier web services experience
- 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 partnering with product or program management teams
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- 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
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, VA, Arlington - 184,900.00 - 250,200.00 USD annually
USA, WA, Seattle - 184,900.00 - 250,200.00 USD annually