AHAS reduces the risk of human and operator access to AWS production systems and customer environments. As the Senior Security Engineer embedded with an AHAS software development team, you own the security design decisions for the operator-access tooling this team builds - tooling that engineers across AWS depend on to request, scope, and audit their access. You define what constitutes the highest-risk operator access, quantify it with data, and partner with teams across AWS to move that access to lower-risk patterns or remove it.
Key job responsibilities
- Define what counts as high-risk human access to production systems and the data they hold. You identify the access patterns (standing credentials, broad emergency access, unscoped remote sessions, unreviewed privilege elevation) that carry the greatest risk, and you rank them with data rather than opinion.
- Drive design decisions that lower access risk by default: scoped and time-bound credentials, reviewed privilege elevation, and auditable emergency access, so systems stay secure without depending on operator discipline.
- Partner with engineering teams across the organization to reduce risky access. You turn your risk model into concrete remediation, negotiate adoption, and measure the reduction over time.
- Build the measurement and detection capabilities that show where risky access exists and whether it is trending down, and use that data to prioritize the work.
- Investigate security issues involving human access and turn each one into a durable improvement in the tooling or the risk model, not a one-off fix.
- Mentor software and security engineers, raise the bar through design and code review, and represent your team's security posture to leadership and partner teams.
A day in the life
Most days come down to one question: who can reach critical production systems, and how do we make that access safer? You dig into the data, find the access patterns that carry the most risk, and decide what to tackle first. Then the part that matters most: you take each finding to the software engineers you work with and build the fix into the tooling, so the identification becomes automatic instead of something you teams have to discover. You'll also win over teams across the company to build tools and mechanisms to remove the risk completeley. Find the problem, then automate it away.
About the team
AWS Human Access Security (AHAS) is a security and engineering team with one mission: make it safe for people to operate the systems that run AWS. Every engineer who touches production is our customer, and we build the tools they use to understand their access and reduce their risk. We pair security engineers with software engineers so good security is built into the product, not bolted on afterward. We care about measurable impact, clear thinking, and shipping fixes that stick. If you want your work to lower real risk across a huge fleet, join us.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- 5+ years of non-internship background in troubleshooting systems issues, analyzing logs, or automating complex tasks using command line tools experience
- 5+ years of work in identifying security issues and risks, and developing mitigation plans experience
- 5+ years of (non-internship) scripting, programming, and security code review in common programming languages experience
- Knowledge of at least two of the following programming languages: Scala, Java, Python, C/C++, or Go
- Experience (non-internship) in scripting, programming, and security code reviewing in a common programming language
- Experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Experience applying threat modeling or other risk identification techniques or equivalent
- Experience with security in service-oriented architectures/microservices and web services
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, VA, Arlington - 178,400.00 - 226,700.00 USD annually
