Systems Development Manager
Amazon
Systems Development Manager
Amazon
Sells products online and rents cloud computing
Applicants must be Australian citizens and hold or be eligible to obtain an Australian Government Security Clearance with the ability to successfully complete an Organisational Suitability Assessment. More information regarding security clearances can be found at https://www.agsva.gov.au/.
The Role
This is a rare opportunity to sit at the intersection of world-class cloud engineering and Australia's most critical national security missions. As an engineer within the AWS Region Services team, you will be the driving force behind operational excellence at massive scale — building the automation, tooling, and systems that keep Australia's most sensitive workloads running flawlessly.
You won't just be maintaining infrastructure. You'll be architecting the operational backbone of a programme that will define how an entire nation defends itself in the digital age. Every tool you build, every process you automate, and every issue you resolve has a direct impact — empowering the analysts, decision-makers, and defenders who depend on this platform every single day.
Key job responsibilities
You'll own the operational heartbeat of one of Australia's most ambitious cloud programmes. Your days will be defined by building — not just fixing — the systems that make massive-scale infrastructure hum.
You'll design and deploy operational tooling that eliminates toil and transforms manual processes into elegant automation. When a repetitive task exists, you'll see it as an engineering problem waiting to be solved. Your code will free your teammates to focus on what matters most: innovation and mission impact.
As a technical leader, you'll hire, develop, and mentor the engineers around you — shaping not just systems, but careers. You'll pair with brilliant colleagues to build and manage services that operate at extraordinary scale, collaborating with some of the leading minds in distributed systems to push the boundaries of what's possible.
When customers face their toughest challenges, you'll be the one who digs deep — diagnosing complex issues across interconnected systems and delivering resolutions that restore confidence. You'll track service health with precision, identifying patterns before they become problems and fixing issues on systems where the margin for error is razor-thin.
You'll participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation, standing as the last line of defence when high-severity issues arise — because in this mission, reliability isn't optional, it's everything.
A day in the life
Your morning starts with a quick scan of service health dashboards — the systems you've built are humming, and the automation you deployed last week has already eliminated three manual runbook steps. You smile. That's engineering with purpose.
By mid-morning, you're deep in code, crafting a new operational tool that will reduce incident response time across the fleet. You're parsing logs with the precision of a surgeon — grep, awk, and sed are second nature — tracing a subtle anomaly through procfs and sysfs until the root cause reveals itself. You push a fix, validate it through your CI/CD pipeline, and watch it roll out seamlessly.
After lunch, you're in a design review with your team, whiteboarding a new approach to service monitoring that leverages systemd hooks and custom metrics. The conversation is electric — ideas bouncing between engineers who genuinely love solving hard problems together. You mentor a newer team member through a tricky networking issue, watching their confidence grow as they master tcpdump and netstat to isolate the fault.
Later, you join a cross-team collaboration session where distributed systems architects are tackling a scaling challenge. Your input on DNS configuration and network topology shapes the solution. Before you wrap up, you review a pull request, leave thoughtful feedback, and update your team's Agile board.
As you close your laptop, you know that the work you did today — the tools you built, the people you coached, the problems you solved — is directly enabling Australia's national security community to operate with speed and confidence they've never had before.
About the team
Region Services provides the highest calibre Operational Solutions and Cleared Support for services within our Regions. We provide 'hands on keyboard' support to our service teams by deploying changes into these isolated regions, monitoring the results, and reporting any issues that are observed.
Diverse Experiences
Amazon 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.
Why AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped innovating — that’s why customers from the most successful startups to Global 500 companies trust our robust suite of products and services to power their businesses.
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 we strive for flexibility as part of our working culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve in the cloud.
Inclusive Team Culture
AWS values curiosity and connection. Our employee-led and company-sponsored affinity groups promote inclusion and empower our people to take pride in what makes us unique. Our inclusion events foster stronger, more collaborative teams. Our continual innovation is fueled by the bold ideas, fresh perspectives, and passionate voices our teams bring to everything we do.
Mentorship and 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, mentorship and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.
- 5+ years of managing system or software development teams experience
- 7+ years of relevant hands-on systems engineering and administrative work in networking, storage systems, operating systems experience
- 7+ 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
- Knowledge of professional software engineering & best practices for full software development life cycle, including coding standards, software architectures, code reviews, source control management, continuous deployments, testing, and operational excellence
- Knowledge of systems engineering fundamentals (networking, storage, operating systems)
- Experience with AWS platforms, services, and design patterns
- Experience in communicating with users, other technical teams, and senior leadership to collect requirements, describe software product features, technical designs, and product strategy
Acknowledgement of country:
In the spirit of reconciliation Amazon acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
IDE statement:
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.
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Amazon runs the largest online store in the United States and rents cloud computing to businesses and governments through Amazon Web Services. AWS pioneered renting computing power over the internet, and Amazon built its own delivery network to get orders to customers quickly. Shoppers buy from Amazon and from independent sellers on its store, and Prime members pay a subscription for fast free shipping, streaming video and music, and other perks. AWS rents out computing power, storage, databases, and AI tools so companies can run software without owning servers, and Amazon also makes Kindle e-readers and Echo speakers with the Alexa assistant. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, and it is based in Seattle, Washington.
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