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About This Role
DESCRIPTION
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AWS Marketplace is a digital catalog where customers discover, evaluate, procure, and deploy third\-party cloud software through the Marketplace website and AWS consoles. The AI Agents team is building the next generation of agentic commerce experiences — enabling AI agents to autonomously discover, negotiate, purchase, and consume software on behalf of customers. We own our product roadmap, technical design, engineering process, launch plan and go\-to\-market
Our team is made up of inspired product managers, strong technical leaders, and motivated, autonomous software engineers operating at the frontier of agentic AI and commerce. As a Software Dev Engineer on the team, you'll design and build the backend services and APIs that power agent\-to\-agent transactions, payment protocols (such as x402\), and programmatic software procurement — meeting the high bar for reliability, security, and performance that machine\-speed commerce demands.
You operate at all levels — diving deep into implementation details while providing strategic input on product direction. You will design and implement features that deliver customer benefit at scale, closely with product managers, applied scientists, and peer\-level engineers to ship critical products in a fast\-moving space. You will own quality and deployment for your code. You will mentor junior team members and raise the bar on software development best practices. You're expected to think like an owner, driving the right trade\-offs on time to market, quality, and breadth of functionality.
The ideal candidate is a creative technologist with both breadth and depth across distributed systems, API design, and generative AI. This role requires excellent technical, problem\-solving, and communication skills. You will innovate by defining novel solutions for problems that haven't been solved at scale — like how do AI agents safely transact, authenticate, and fulfill software purchases without human intervention? Ideal candidates have hands\-on experience with Gen AI, agentic architectures, or payment/commerce systems, and show bias for action within a cohesive, startup\-style team.
You should be comfortable with ambiguity and energized by greenfield problem spaces. You'll gain a unique vantage point on how AI is reshaping software commerce across Amazon and help influence that direction. Along the way, you'll learn, have fun, and make a positive impact on millions of customers and the emerging ecosystem of autonomous AI agents.
Key job responsibilities
- Collaborate with experienced cross\-disciplinary Amazonians to develop, design, and bring to market innovative devices and services
- Design and build innovative technologies in a large distributed computing environment and help lead fundamental changes in the industry
- Create solutions to run predictions on distributed systems with exposure to latest technologies at incredible scale and speed
- Build distributed storage, index, and query systems that are scalable, fault\-tolerant, low cost, and easy to manage/use
About the team
Diverse Experiences
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.
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.
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 \& 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.
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.BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
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- 3\+ years of non\-internship professional software development experience
- 2\+ years of non\-internship design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
- 1\+ years of designing and developing large\-scale, multi\-tiered, multi\-threaded, embedded or distributed software applications, tools, systems, and services using: C\#, C\+\+, Java, or Perl experience
- 1\+ years of Object Oriented Design experience
- Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
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- 3\+ years of full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations experience
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 \- 143,700\.00 \- 194,400\.00 USD annually
Salary Context
This $143K-$194K range is in the lower quartile for AI Agent Developer roles in our dataset (median: $212K across 45 roles with salary data).
View full AI Agent Developer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI Agent Developers build autonomous systems that can reason, plan, and take actions. They design multi-step workflows, tool-use frameworks, and orchestration layers that let LLMs interact with external systems. This is the frontier of applied AI engineering.
Agent development is where the most interesting (and hardest) problems in applied AI live right now. Making an LLM answer a question is straightforward. Making it reliably execute a 15-step workflow that involves calling APIs, reading databases, making decisions, and recovering from errors is an unsolved problem. You're building systems that have to work despite the fact that the underlying model is non-deterministic.
Across the 3,824 AI roles we're tracking, AI Agent Developer positions make up 1% of the market. At Amazon Web Services, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
AI Agent Developer is one of the newest and fastest-growing AI role categories. The market is early but accelerating as companies move beyond simple chatbots toward AI systems that can take real actions. Compensation is high because the skill set is rare and the business impact is potentially enormous.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week includes: designing the action space and tool definitions for a new agent use case, debugging why the agent chose the wrong action sequence on a specific input, building evaluation frameworks that test agent reliability across hundreds of scenarios, optimizing the prompt chain for cost and latency, and implementing safety guardrails to prevent the agent from taking destructive actions. The work is equal parts engineering and empirical science.
AI Agent Developer is one of the newest and fastest-growing AI role categories. The market is early but accelerating as companies move beyond simple chatbots toward AI systems that can take real actions. Compensation is high because the skill set is rare and the business impact is potentially enormous.
Skills Required
Deep experience with LLM APIs and agent frameworks (LangChain, CrewAI, AutoGen). Strong understanding of prompt engineering, function calling, and error handling for non-deterministic systems. Python is standard. Experience with orchestration patterns, state management, and workflow engines adds significant value.
The best agent developers think like systems engineers. They design for failure modes, build observability into every step, and understand that agent reliability is the product. Expertise in evaluation methodology for non-deterministic systems is the differentiator. Can you measure whether your agent works 'well enough'? Can you find the edge cases where it breaks?
Look for roles that describe specific agent use cases, mention evaluation methodology, and talk about production deployment. Early-stage companies exploring agents can be exciting, but be prepared for ambiguity. The most valuable roles are at companies that have already shipped a v1 and need to make it reliable.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI Agent Developer roles pay a median of $252,000 based on 90 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $160,000. This role's midpoint ($169K) sits 33% below the category median. Disclosed range: $143K to $194K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $200,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Engineering Manager ($293,500) and AI Safety ($274,200). By seniority level: Entry: $97,380; Mid: $160,000; Senior: $227,400; Director: $243,000; VP: $250,000.
Amazon Web Services AI Hiring
Amazon Web Services has 83 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, Research Scientist, AI Software Engineer, AI Agent Developer. Positions span New York, NY, US, Seattle, WA, US, Cupertino, CA, US. Compensation range: $142K - $295K.
Location Context
AI roles in Seattle pay a median of $228,000 across 1,009 tracked positions. That's 14% above the national median.
Career Path
Common paths into AI Agent Developer roles include Software Engineer, LLM Engineer, Prompt Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward AI Architect, Principal Engineer, Head of AI Engineering.
Build agents. That's the portfolio. Take an open-source agent framework, build something that completes a non-trivial multi-step task, evaluate it rigorously, and document what you learned about reliability, cost, and failure modes. The field is new enough that practical experience counts for more than credentials.
What to Expect in Interviews
Interviews focus on systems thinking and reliability engineering. Expect questions about agent architecture: how you'd design a multi-step workflow with error recovery, how you'd evaluate agent performance, and how you'd prevent agents from taking destructive actions. Coding exercises often involve building a simple agent with tool use and evaluating its behavior across different scenarios. Discussion of safety and guardrails is increasingly common.
When evaluating opportunities: Look for roles that describe specific agent use cases, mention evaluation methodology, and talk about production deployment. Early-stage companies exploring agents can be exciting, but be prepared for ambiguity. The most valuable roles are at companies that have already shipped a v1 and need to make it reliable.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 3,824 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 119 entry-level, 1,813 mid-level, 1,472 senior, and 420 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 16% of the market (613 positions). The remaining 3,187 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $200,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. Highest-paying categories: AI Engineering Manager ($293,500 median, 31 roles); AI Safety ($274,200 median, 51 roles); Research Engineer ($260,000 median, 401 roles).
AI Agent Developer is one of the newest and fastest-growing AI role categories. The market is early but accelerating as companies move beyond simple chatbots toward AI systems that can take real actions. Compensation is high because the skill set is rare and the business impact is potentially enormous.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 3,824 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,702), Data Scientist (281), AI Software Engineer (258). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (119) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,813) and senior (1,472) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 420 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 16% of all AI roles (613 positions), with 3,187 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $200,000. Top-quartile roles start at $253,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $307,500. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Engineering Manager roles lead at $293,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $142,800. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,968 postings), Aws (1,203 postings), Azure (882 postings), Rag (877 postings), Gcp (735 postings), Prompt Engineering (587 postings), Pytorch (586 postings), Claude (554 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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