Principal Engineer, EC2

Job ID: | Amazon Web Services Development Center Germany GmbH 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, and 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. In this role, you will: Lead the Development of Core EC2 Capabilities: Spearhead the design and architecture of new EC2 instance features, from CPU scheduling and memory management to device emulation and PCIe subsystem integration. Your technical guidance will shape the roadmap and implementation across multiple global teams. Advance Virtualization Security: Drive security‑focused initiatives that enhance the integrity and resilience of our virtualization platform, ensuring the highest standards of data protection for our customers. Mentor and Grow Engineering Talent: Leverage your deep technical expertise to develop other engineers, providing architecture reviews, design proposals, and hands‑on coding support to elevate the skills of the broader team. Influence the Future of Cloud Computing: Contribute your thinking to shape the technological direction of EC2 instances and features, advocating for innovative solutions that deliver exceptional performance and value to our customers. 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 to collaborate closely with the cross‑functional engineering and product teams driving the development of our next‑generation EC2 instance families. Remote work arrangements or locating in another Amazon office are not possible for this role. This level of dedicated, on‑site participation is essential to the effective execution and advancement of this strategic cloud computing initiative. To excel in this role, you will need a proven track record as a solid technical Principal Engineer, with expertise in low‑level system software, hardware acceleration, and cloud infrastructure. You should also possess strong leadership abilities, the capacity to thrive in a fast‑paced, startup‑like environment, and a passion for mentoring and developing engineering talent. Key Job Responsibilities 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. Drive virtualization‑related security initiatives. Design and architect new EC2 instance features and deliver them by growing other engineers. Influence and contribute to the technological roadmap of EC2 instances and features, through compelling customer justification. 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. At the core of the team's two‑fold mission is a relentless drive to engineer new capabilities that eliminate any remaining barriers for customers to fully embrace the cloud. 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 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. Proficiency in both x86 and ARM CPU architectures. m/w/d Amazon is an equal opportunity employer. We believe passionately that employing a diverse workforce is central to our success. We make recruiting decisions based on your experience and skills. We value your passion to discover, invent, simplify and build. 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