Application deadline: Sep 1, 2026
Key job responsibilities
As a member of the S3 Hardware engineering team, you will be responsible for bringing new HDD technology to our systems & products as well as scaling how we operate our massive existing & rapidly growing fleet. You will interact with engineers across the company, external vendors and work with an interdisciplinary team to execute product designs from concept to production including design, development, validation, and the successful implementation of your work at large scale. You'll provide leadership in the application of new technologies to large scale server deployments in a continuous effort to deliver a world-class customer experience. This is a fast-paced, challenging position, and you'll work with thought leaders in multiple technology areas. You'll have high standards for yourself and everyone you work with, and you'll be constantly looking for ways to improve your products performance, quality and cost. We're changing an industry, and we want team members who are ready for this challenge and want to reach beyond what is possible today.
A day in the life
Your day begins by reviewing overnight fleet analytics dashboards that monitor millions of hard drives across AWS data centers worldwide. You analyze performance trends and anomalies, using data-driven insights to prioritize which system interaction issues require immediate attention and which represent opportunities for long-term optimization. This morning review shapes your focus for the day, balancing immediate operational needs with your strategic work advancing the next generation of storage technology.
Approximately half of your time is dedicated to pioneering new technology initiatives that will define the future of cloud storage. You might spend your morning collaborating with hardware partners to land revolutionary HAMR laser-enabled HDDs into production, working through the complex qualification process that will eventually bring unprecedented storage density to AWS customers. In the afternoon, you could be evaluating breakthrough firmware capabilities that fundamentally change how drives perform, running extensive validation tests to ensure these innovations meet AWS's exacting standards before deployment at scale. You also push the boundaries of software-HDD interaction, architecting novel approaches that extract maximum performance and reliability from storage hardware in ways that weren't previously possible. These initiatives require you to think years ahead, anticipating how emerging technologies will enable AWS to continue delivering industry-leading storage solutions.
The remainder of your time focuses on maintaining operational excellence across the existing fleet. You debug complex system interaction issues flagged by your automated monitoring, tracing root causes through layers of infrastructure to develop fixes that prevent similar problems across millions of devices. You continuously build and refine the automation frameworks, analytics tools, and scalable solutions that make managing a fleet of this magnitude possible. Every script you write and every system you architect multiplies your impact exponentially, ensuring that as AWS scales and adopts cutting-edge storage technologies, the infrastructure remains robust, efficient, and capable of supporting the next generation of cloud innovation that our customers depend on.
About the team
Drive Hardware Development Engineers in AWS Hardware Engineering own all of the HDD's in Amazon S3. You own coordinating with HDD manufacturers on development and qualification of HDDs. Once landed you drive orchestration tooling development, hardware integration, and deep into problems across the breadth of AWS. The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of HDDs, and proven track record of rapidly coming up to speed on new engineering challenges, making impactful decisions within that space, and have experience gluing together components written by more specialized engineers to create a cohesive, well-running engineering product.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- Experience in developing functional specifications, design verification plans and functional test procedures
- Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or equivalent
- 5+ years of engineering experience deploying and operating HDDs systems.
- Deep engineering understanding of HDDs function and system interactions.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Master's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or equivalent
- Experience with the project management of technical projects
- 8+ Years in HDD or storage related Engineering
- Experience with SATA interface, ACHI, or host level storage debugging
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, CO, Denver - 159,200.00 - 215,300.00 USD annually
