Software Development Engineer II, AWS SageMaker AI

$143K - $194K Bellevue, WA, US Mid Level AI Product Manager

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Skills & Technologies

AwsKubernetesPytorchSagemaker

About This Role

AI job market dashboard showing open roles by category

DESCRIPTION

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At AWS SageMaker AI, we're making it easy to build state\-of\-the\-art foundation models on the cloud. Model Factory is our platform for building, training, customizing, and evaluating foundation models at scale. Instead of hand\-chaining data prep, distributed training, evaluation, and deployment across thousands of GPU and AWS Trainium devices, Model Factory lets teams express the whole lifecycle as a single, contract\-validated workflow — orchestrated, reproducible, and fully managed. As LLMs and Generative AI scale, Model Factory is the platform that turns frontier training research into a reliable, repeatable pipeline for our internal teams and customers.

We're looking for a Software Development Engineer to help design, build, and operate the distributed systems at the core of this platform — the orchestration engine, compute integrations, SDK and contract layer, and the infrastructure that runs large\-scale training and customization jobs. You'll own components end\-to\-end, from design through delivery and on\-call operations, and work closely with the ML scientists and platform teams who depend on Model Factory every day. You'll turn requirements into robust, scalable, supportable services that fit cleanly into the overall architecture, uphold a high engineering bar, and grow your scope and technical leadership as you go.

A successful candidate has a strong software\-engineering foundation, writes high\-quality distributed\-systems and services code, communicates clearly, and is motivated to deliver results in a fast\-paced, ambiguous environment.

Key job responsibilities

As a Software Development Engineer on the SageMaker AI team, you will:

  • Design, build, test, and operate services that orchestrate foundation\-model data preparation, training, evaluation, and deployment as reliable, contract\-validated workflows.
  • Own delivery of individual components end\-to\-end — from design and implementation through deployment, monitoring, and on\-call operations.
  • Build and extend compute\-backend integrations and job launchers — submitting, monitoring, and recovering large\-scale training jobs across SageMaker (Training/Processing/HyperPod), EMR, AWS Batch, and Kubernetes/EKS.
  • Improve the platform's resiliency and operability for long\-running distributed jobs — checkpoint/resume, fault detection and recovery, retries, and observability (metrics, logging, experiment tracking).
  • Contribute to the SDK, workflow orchestration, and schema/contract layer that teams use to declare and run jobs, and to the CDK infrastructure that deploys the platform.
  • Integrate containerized training and evaluation frameworks (e.g., PyTorch/FSDP, verl, NeMo/Megatron) into the platform's task and recipe model.
  • Contribute to design and architecture discussions, write clear technical designs, and uphold engineering best practices (code review, testing, operational readiness).
  • Collaborate with ML scientists and internal customers to translate training requirements into reliable, self\-service platform capabilities, and help onboard and mentor interns and new engineers as you grow.

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 software development engineer or related occupational 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
  • Experience programming with at least one software programming language

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
  • Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent

\- \- Experience with workflow/pipeline orchestration (Airflow, Step Functions, or similar) and event\-driven or service\-oriented architectures.

\- \- Experience with container and cluster compute (Kubernetes/EKS, Ray, Slurm, AWS Batch) and cloud infrastructure\-as\-code (AWS CDK/CloudFormation).

\- \- Experience building and operating fully\-managed cloud services at scale, including resiliency, checkpointing, and fault tolerance for long\-running jobs.

\- \- Familiarity with machine\-learning / deep\-learning training workflows, GPU/accelerator compute (SageMaker HyperPod, AWS Trainium, P5\-class GPUs), or distributed\-training frameworks (PyTorch FSDP, Megatron\-LM, DeepSpeed, verl).

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, BELLEVUE \- 143,700\.00 \- 194,400\.00 USD annually

Salary Context

This $143K-$194K range is below the median for AI Product Manager roles in our dataset (median: $185K across 167 roles with salary data).

View full AI Product Manager salary data →

Role Details

Company Amazon.com
Title Software Development Engineer II, AWS SageMaker AI
Location Bellevue, WA, US
Experience Mid Level
Salary $143K - $194K
Remote No

About This Role

AI Product Managers define what AI features get built and why. They translate business problems into ML-solvable tasks, work with engineering to scope model requirements, and own the metrics that determine if an AI feature is working. The role requires a rare combination of technical fluency and product instinct.

Unlike traditional product management, AI PM work involves managing uncertainty at a fundamental level. Your model might work 90% of the time. What happens the other 10%? What's the user experience when the AI is wrong? How do you measure 'good enough' for a probabilistic system? These questions don't have easy answers, and the AI PM is the person responsible for finding them.

Across the 4,317 AI roles we're tracking, AI Product Manager positions make up 4% of the market. At Amazon.com, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.

AI Product Manager roles are growing as companies realize that shipping AI features requires different product thinking than traditional software. The best candidates combine product management experience with enough technical depth to have productive conversations with ML engineers about model capabilities and limitations.

What the Work Looks Like

A typical week includes: reviewing model evaluation results with the ML team, defining success metrics for a new AI feature, conducting user research on how customers respond to AI-generated outputs, writing product requirements that include accuracy thresholds and fallback behaviors, and presenting the AI roadmap to leadership. You're the translator between technical capability and business value.

AI Product Manager roles are growing as companies realize that shipping AI features requires different product thinking than traditional software. The best candidates combine product management experience with enough technical depth to have productive conversations with ML engineers about model capabilities and limitations.

Skills Required

Aws (28% of roles) Kubernetes (13% of roles) Pytorch (15% of roles) Sagemaker (4% of roles)

Technical fluency with ML concepts is essential, though you won't be writing models. Expect to understand training data, evaluation metrics, model limitations, and responsible AI practices. SQL and basic Python are increasingly expected. Experience with A/B testing, data analysis, and product analytics is baseline. Understanding LLM capabilities and limitations is now a core requirement.

The differentiator is AI-specific product thinking: knowing when to use ML vs. heuristics, understanding the cost of training data collection, designing graceful degradation for model failures, and building products that improve with usage data. Experience with AI safety, bias mitigation, and responsible AI deployment is increasingly important.

Strong postings describe specific AI products the PM will own, mention the ML team structure, and talk about measurement methodology. Look for companies that have already shipped AI features. Roles at companies that are 'exploring AI' often mean you'll spend a year defining the strategy before any building happens.

Compensation Benchmarks

AI Product Manager roles pay a median of $217,100 based on 471 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $194,400. This role's midpoint ($169K) sits 22% below the category median. Disclosed range: $143K to $194K.

Across all AI roles, the market median is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($287,500) and Research Engineer ($272,100). By seniority level: Entry: $110,000; Mid: $194,400; Senior: $227,400; Director: $274,554; VP: $241,000.

Amazon.com AI Hiring

Amazon.com has 122 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, Research Scientist, AI Product Manager, AI Software Engineer. Positions span Seattle, WA, US, Santa Clara, CA, US, New York, NY, US. Compensation range: $128K - $338K.

Location Context

Across all AI roles, 15% (635 positions) offer remote work, while 3,657 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (1,650 roles, $220,000 median); San Francisco (1,335 roles, $265,000 median); Los Angeles (708 roles, $214,112 median).

Career Path

Common paths into AI Product Manager roles include Product Manager, Data Analyst, Technical Program Manager.

From here, career progression typically leads toward Director of AI Product, VP Product, Head of AI.

The most effective path is PM experience plus self-directed AI education. Take Andrew Ng's courses, build a small ML project, and learn enough Python to read model evaluation code. The goal isn't to become an ML engineer. It's to have credibility in technical conversations and to understand what's possible, what's hard, and what's a bad idea.

What to Expect in Interviews

AI interviews typically combine coding challenges (Python-focused), system design questions tailored to the role, and discussions about your experience with relevant tools and frameworks. Strong candidates demonstrate both technical depth and the ability to make pragmatic engineering tradeoffs. Prepare portfolio projects that demonstrate end-to-end capability rather than isolated skills.

When evaluating opportunities: Strong postings describe specific AI products the PM will own, mention the ML team structure, and talk about measurement methodology. Look for companies that have already shipped AI features. Roles at companies that are 'exploring AI' often mean you'll spend a year defining the strategy before any building happens.

AI Hiring Overview

The AI job market has 4,317 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 138 entry-level, 2,071 mid-level, 1,655 senior, and 453 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 15% of the market (635 positions). The remaining 3,657 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.

The market median for AI roles is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($287,500 median, 34 roles); Research Engineer ($272,100 median, 227 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($244,000 median, 23 roles).

AI Product Manager roles are growing as companies realize that shipping AI features requires different product thinking than traditional software. The best candidates combine product management experience with enough technical depth to have productive conversations with ML engineers about model capabilities and limitations.

The AI Job Market Today

The AI job market spans 4,317 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (3,004), Data Scientist (345), AI Software Engineer (309). 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 (138) are outnumbered by mid-level (2,071) and senior (1,655) 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 453 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.

Remote work availability sits at 15% of all AI roles (635 positions), with 3,657 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 $215,000. Top-quartile roles start at $266,300, and the 90th percentile reaches $320,790. 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 Safety roles lead at $287,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $145,000. 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 (2,249 postings), Aws (1,224 postings), Azure (938 postings), Rag (915 postings), Gcp (660 postings), Pytorch (640 postings), Prompt Engineering (624 postings), Kubernetes (559 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

Based on 471 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for AI Product Manager positions is $217,100. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
Technical fluency with ML concepts is essential, though you won't be writing models. Expect to understand training data, evaluation metrics, model limitations, and responsible AI practices. SQL and basic Python are increasingly expected. Experience with A/B testing, data analysis, and product analytics is baseline. Understanding LLM capabilities and limitations is now a core requirement.
About 15% of the 4,317 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
Amazon.com is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from AI Product Manager positions include Director of AI Product, VP Product, Head of AI. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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