Software Development Engineer, Open Data Analytics Fundamentals Team

Amazon EMR is a web service that enables customers to run massive clusters with open-source data processing frameworks like Apache Spark, Hive, Presto, Hadoop, HBase and more, with the ability to effortlessly scale up and down as needed. EMR runs across multiple deployment modes - EC2, EKS, and Serverless - serving millions of clusters across all AWS regions.

The ODA Fundamentals team owns the end-to-end lifecycle of releases across Amazon EMR (EC2, EKS, Serverless), AWS Glue, and Amazon Athena. We build, validate, register, and distribute AMIs and Docker images that power every cluster. We own the Kamino pipeline - the automated system that takes open-source frameworks and packages them into production-ready releases. We also own patching (in-place and OS-level), region builds (launching services in new AWS regions), and release automation tooling.

We are looking for a Software Development Engineer to help us build the next generation of release automation. You will design and implement services that automate the build, validation, and distribution of releases across all deployment modes and services. You will work on distributed systems that must be reliable, scalable, and secure - our pipeline directly impacts every EMR, Glue, and Athena customer. You will also contribute to reducing operational toil through automation, improving release velocity, and ensuring our services are available in every AWS region.

Successful candidates will have strong software development skills, experience with distributed systems, and a bias for automation. You should be comfortable owning end-to-end delivery - from design through deployment and operations. Experience with CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, or release engineering is a plus.

A day in the life

You will work across the full stack - from CDK infrastructure to Java/Python services to operational tooling. You will collaborate with engine teams (Spark, Hive, Presto), platform teams (EC2, EKS, Serverless, Glue, Athena), and security teams. You will participate in on-call rotations and drive operational excellence for the release pipeline.

The ODA Fundamentals team is part of Open Data Analytics Engines (ODA-E) within AWS. We are the team behind every EMR, Glue, and Athena release - responsible for building, patching, and distributing releases across all AWS regions and deployment modes. Our mission is to make releases fully automated, zero-touch, and always green. We are currently rebuilding our core infrastructure (Kamino) as a unified serverless architecture to replace platform-specific services.

About the team

AWS 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. If your career is just starting, hasn't followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don't let it stop you from applying.

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