Principal Engineer, EC2 Accelerated Nitro

About the Role

As a Principal Engineer on EC2 in the Accelerated Nitro team, you will have the opportunity to make a significant impact on the core infrastructure powering Amazon Web Services. You will be at the forefront of developing the next generation of EC2 instance families, driving innovations in virtualization, hardware acceleration, and cloud computing.

The EC2 Accelerated Nitro team focuses on building highly efficient and secure hypervisors, as well as integrating advanced hardware accelerators like GPUs and FPGAs into the EC2 instance families. This enables us to deliver near bare‑metal performance and support a wide range of workloads, from machine learning and high‑performance computing to graphics processing.

This role is exclusively based in our Berlin, Germany office. The successful candidate must be willing and able to be physically present in the Berlin office every day. Remote work arrangements or locating in another Amazon office are not possible for this role.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Development of Core EC2 Capabilities: design and architecture new EC2 instance features, from CPU scheduling and memory management to device emulation and PCIe subsystem integration, providing technical guidance across multiple global teams.
• Advance Virtualization Security: drive security‑focused initiatives that enhance the integrity and resilience of our virtualization platform.
• Mentor and Grow Engineering Talent: develop other engineers through architecture reviews, design proposals, and hands‑on coding support.
• Influence the Future of Cloud Computing: shape the technological direction of EC2 instances and features, advocating for innovative solutions that deliver exceptional performance and value.
• Deliver new EC2 instance platforms by giving technical guidance to multiple teams across different time zones and locations, and working closely with product managers and technical program managers.
• Design and architect new EC2 instance features and deliver them by growing other engineers.
• Improve the efficiency of the organization by offering technical solutions to operational bottlenecks.

A Day in the Life

• Technical Leadership: Overseeing strategic projects while collaborating with internal teams, external partners, and customers to provide technical vision for next‑generation EC2 instance types and hypervisor features.
• Design and Innovation: Creating prototypes that validate concepts and establish timelines; developing design documents that guide engineering efforts across organizations.
• Hands‑on Engineering: Actively participating in development, debugging, and release management to deliver customer value on schedule.
• Strategic Planning: Partnering with management on progress reporting and future planning to effectively prioritize initiatives across the organization.

About the Team

The EC2 Accelerated Nitro team has a bold mission: to leave no customer workload on‑premises and build the most feature‑rich virtualization platform in the cloud. The team develops new EC2 instance families powered by the latest hardware accelerators, enabling customers to run their most demanding workloads with unparalleled performance, efficiency, and cost‑effectiveness. Simultaneously, the team enhances the Nitro virtualization system, pushing the boundaries of cloud computing through innovations in memory management, security, and live migration, giving customers unprecedented flexibility, reliability, and control. The team solves high‑impact, technically complex challenges that are shaping the future of cloud computing, from developing the next generation of hardware‑accelerated instance types to building the most feature‑rich virtualization technology available.

Basic Qualifications

• Master's degree in computer science or equivalent
• Experience in networking, multi‑threaded applications, interprocess communication, and complex software development
• Experience optimizing for short‑term execution while planning for long‑term technical capabilities
• Experience developing an operating system kernel or production hypervisor
• Proficiency in at least one CPU architecture, such as x86 or ARM
• Experience growing other engineers and working in diverse teams
• Excellent English verbal and written communication skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience influencing groups outside their own VP from an architecture perspective
• Experience creating architectural vision
• Experience enhancing the security posture of a kernel or hypervisor
• Experience resolving complex issues in the interactions between software and hardware, including working with PCIe internals and the interactions between software and hardware
• Proficient in both x86 and ARM CPU architectures

Benefits & Culture

• Work/Life Balance: Flexibility as part of the working culture to support harmony between professional and personal life.
• Inclusive Team Culture: Employee‑led affinity groups, diversity conferences (CORE, AmazeCon), and ongoing events that foster inclusion and celebrate differences.
• Mentorship and Career Growth: Knowledge‑sharing, mentorship, and career‑advancing resources to help develop into a better‑rounded professional.
• Diverse Experiences: Encouragement to apply even if you do not meet every preferred qualification; non‑traditional career paths are welcomed.
• Why AWS: Access to the world’s most comprehensive cloud platform, working on innovative services that power startups to Global 500 companies.