Systems Engineer
Amazon
Systems Engineer
Amazon
Sells products online and rents cloud computing
G'day! You've found an opportunity that could define your next chapter.
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/.
Please note: This role can be based in either Sydney or Melbourne — relocation support is available for interstate candidates within Australia.
The Mission - Why This Program, Why Now?
You're joining at the defining moment of one of the most significant technology programmes Australia has ever undertaken. This programme will build and operate the dedicated cloud giving Australia's national security community and its allies the capability to see more, share more, innovate and act faster than ever before.
The architectural decisions being made now - how we structure networking, implement security controls, and automate at scale - will shape how Australia's national security community operates for the next decade. You won't be inheriting someone else's design choices. You'll be making them.
Your Opportunity
Picture yourself at the intersection of sovereign cloud innovation and one of the world's most critical DNS infrastructures. As a Systems Engineer within our Region Services team, you'll be redefining how AWS designs, builds, and operates cloud regions — enabling new infrastructure and services offerings that serve customers across every industry, from ambitious start-ups to the public sector organisations safeguarding our nation.
Route 53 isn't just another DNS service — it's the nervous system of the internet operating across 50+ global locations with a 100% availability SLA. You'll be engineering latency-based routing, Private DNS architectures, Geo DNS solutions, and failover mechanisms that millions depend on without ever knowing your name. The distributed systems you'll build here are among the largest and most complex on the planet, and the challenges waiting for you are the kind that make exceptional engineers come alive.
Whether you choose Melbourne or Sydney as your home base, you'll join a team of adaptable, passionate engineers who thrive on complexity and refuse to accept "good enough." Your technical expertise and development abilities will drive innovation that echoes far beyond a single service — you'll be shaping how Australia's sovereign cloud capability operates for a generation.
Key job responsibilities
You'll own the full engineering lifecycle of Route 53's DNS infrastructure within this programme — and that means your fingerprints will be on everything from initial architecture through to operational excellence at scale.
Your core mission is designing and implementing DNS solutions that leverage Route 53's advanced capabilities: latency-based routing that shaves milliseconds off critical queries, Private DNS configurations that enable secure service discovery, Geo DNS routing that directs traffic with surgical precision, and failover architectures that ensure zero downtime when it matters most.
You'll write production-quality code daily. Whether it's building automation frameworks that accelerate change propagation, developing monitoring systems that surface anomalies before they become incidents, or creating tooling that multiplies your team's effectiveness — your development skills are as essential as your systems expertise.
Integration is where you'll truly shine. You'll connect Route 53 with the broader AWS ecosystem, collaborating across teams to ensure seamless interoperability between services. You'll participate in architectural reviews, challenge assumptions constructively, and propose solutions that balance innovation with the reliability this programme demands.
Operational excellence runs through everything you do. You'll build and refine runbooks, lead incident response with calm expertise, conduct root-cause analyses that prevent recurrence, and continuously raise the bar for system reliability. You'll mentor teammates, share knowledge generously, and help build a culture where engineering excellence is the baseline, not the aspiration.
A day in the life
Your day starts with purpose. Over your morning coffee, you review overnight metrics dashboards — not out of anxiety, but curiosity. You notice a subtle shift in query patterns across one routing policy and make a mental note to investigate. This is the kind of signal that separates good engineers from great ones, and you've trained yourself to see it.
Mid-morning finds you in a design session with your team, sketching out a new Geo DNS architecture on a whiteboard. The Region Services context adds fascinating constraints — you're not just solving for performance, you're solving for sovereignty, security, and scale simultaneously. A colleague challenges your approach, you refine it together, and the final design is stronger than either of you could have produced alone.
After lunch, you're in flow state — writing automation code that will reduce DNS change propagation time within the programme's environment. Every function is clean, every edge case handled, every test passing green. You push your changes through the CI/CD pipeline you helped build, watching them propagate with the confidence that comes from engineering done right.
The afternoon brings a cross-team integration session. Another team needs Route 53 health checks woven into their monitoring framework, and you're the expert who makes it happen. You explain complex DNS concepts clearly, draw architecture diagrams that illuminate rather than confuse, and leave the room knowing the broader system is more resilient because of your contribution.
As you wrap up from your Melbourne or Sydney office, you review a teammate's pull request with the care and thoughtfulness you'd want applied to your own code. Today, like every day here, your work made Australia's sovereign cloud infrastructure more capable, more reliable, and more ready for whatever comes next.
About the team
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.
Benefits
- Learning & development - AWS training and certification support, access to internal learning platforms.
- Health, income protection and life cover - Amazon subsidises private health insurance premiums, and group salary continuance and life insurance are included at no cost to you
- Military differential pay launching in Australia - Australian employees taking defence reserve leave may receive up to 52 weeks of military differential pay to help cover the difference in pay while serving.
- Employee Assistance Program - Free, confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for you and your family - mental health, financial coaching, legal questions, and everyday life events.
- Family-building benefit - Access to Maven for fertility treatment, adoption support, surrogacy, and parenting coaching.
- Amazon Extras & employee discount - cashback and discounts across hundreds of retail, fitness, travel, and lifestyle partners.
- Bachelor's degree in Systems Engineering, Computer Science, or related field or relevant work experience
- 5+ years of highly scalable systems experience
- Knowledge of networking protocols such as HTTP, DNS and TCP/IP
- Experience with automation or working with scripting languages like Python, Java, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Bash, Shell, or equivalent
- Experience in Linux OS and network troubleshooting
- Experience with AWS, networks and operating systems
- Experience troubleshooting and debugging technical systems, or experience that includes strong analytical skills, attention to detail, and effective communication abilities and experience in managing and troublshooting network
- Experience implementing process improvements
- Extensive knowledge of DNS infrastructure and protocols
- Hands-on experience configuring well-known DNS Server software such as BIND
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.
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.
Explore more opportunities at Amazon