AWS Incident Response (AIR) keeps AWS working for millions of customers. When major incidents hit, AIR leads the response coordinating resolvers across AWS and driving mitigation. We move fast, but not carelessly - obsessing over observability of the cloud and perpetually improving our detection and response speed and accuracy. We ensure each incident drives improvements that strengthen AWS. It's a high-visibility, high-impact role with a global view of AWS health that few teams get to see.
The Role
As the Systems Development Manager for AIR's Seattle team, you'll lead engineers through both operational excellence and tooling delivery. You'll be on the calls - leading incident response, driving clear communication under pressure, ensuring your team grows sharper, and helping raise the resiliency of AWS for all customers. You'll own career development for your engineers, coordinate with peer managers in Sydney and Dublin, partner with alarming and detection teams, and represent AIR to senior leadership. This role is for someone energized by operational leadership who understands systems engineering deeply enough to guide and grow the people doing it.
Key job responsibilities Incident Response Leadership
Own the operational readiness of your team for high-severity incident response. Ensure your engineers can lead calls effectively - triaging, coordinating resolvers, communicating clearly under pressure, and driving incidents to mitigation. Drive improvements in the tooling and automation that supports incident response.
Detection & Observability Improvement
Drive improvements in how AIR detects and responds to AWS health events. Use data and learnings from real incidents to improve detection speed, accuracy, and coverage. Explore new approaches, including generative AI, to find leaps in detection and response capabilities. Make the important obvious and automate the routine.
Cross-Site, Cross-Team Coordination
Coordinate with peer managers in Sydney and Dublin and partner with alarming, detection, and incident tooling teams. Establish clear communication channels and feedback loops across the incident management ecosystem.
Post-Incident Analysis
Lead root-cause analysis and post-incident reviews. Ensure learnings drive corrective actions and that service teams follow through, closing the loop so each incident makes AWS stronger.
Performance Management & Team Development
Own all facets of performance and career management for your team. Grow engineers at all levels, manage operational load, and maintain a high bar for hiring.
About the team AWS Incident Response (AIR) leads the response when major incidents hit AWS, coordinating resolvers across services and driving mitigation for complex, multi-service failures that affect millions of customers. The team operates globally across Seattle, Sydney, and Dublin, providing 24/7 coverage. Beyond real-time incident leadership, AIR drives improvements in detection, observability, and response tooling, ensuring each incident makes AWS stronger. It's a high-visibility team with a rare, cross-cutting view of AWS health, focused on making the important obvious and automating the routine.
Basic Qualifications
- 1+ years of engineering team management experience
- 5+ years of experience in systems engineering, systems development, or infrastructure operations
- Strong understanding of distributed systems, networking fundamentals, and infrastructure failure modes
- Excellent communication skills, particularly the ability to convey technical complexity clearly and quickly under pressure
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience hiring, developing and promoting engineering talent
- Experience using data to drive root cause elimination and process improvement
- Experience managing communication with geographically distributed teams
- Experience with operational best practices: monitoring, alerting, and post-incident analysis
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, WA, Seattle - 166,300.00 - 225,000.00 USD annually