Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR) is AWS's cloud big data platform for running large-scale data processing workloads using open-source frameworks like Apache Spark, Hive, Trino, and Flink. EMR supports multiple deployment models — from fully serverless to customer-managed clusters. Organizations across streaming, financial services, enterprise SaaS, and transportation rely on EMR's scale and performance for their most demanding analytics workloads.

We are looking for a Senior Software Development Manager to lead EMR's Workload Management organization. In this role, you will own the technical vision, roadmap, and execution for EMR's workload orchestration, interactive analytics, identity and access control, and observability platform — the systems that handle every job submitted and every interactive session launched across all EMR compute models.

This is a high-impact role that sits at the intersection of distributed systems engineering, platform unification, and long-term product strategy. You will partner closely with product and engineering leadership from several AWS services, to define and deliver a multi-year platform roadmap that raises the bar on scalability, reliability, and developer experience.

Key job responsibilities

• Lead and grow a multi-team organization of senior engineers and engineering managers focused on workload orchestration, interactive sessions, and platform services — fostering a culture of technical excellence, deep ownership, and customer obsession.
• Define and execute a 1–3 year technical roadmap for EMR's workload platform, balancing near-term customer needs with long-term architectural investments including platform unification across multiple compute models.
• Drive architectural decisions for large-scale distributed workflow systems, including multi-tenant orchestration, session management, authentication services, and workload scheduling at massive scale.
• Drive orders-of-magnitude scalability improvements for job execution, enabling the industry's largest analytics customers to consolidate fragmented workloads into high-throughput environments that reduce cost and operational overhead.
• Partner with product and business stakeholders to translate customer requirements into engineering priorities, ensuring the team delivers features that have measurable customer impact and move adoption.
• Establish operational excellence standards for the platform, including availability, latency, and throughput targets, and lead the org in meeting and exceeding them as the service scales.
• Leverage agentic AI, LLM-powered code generation, and multi-agent orchestration to reimagine how data processing services are built and operated at scale, compressing delivery timelines and raising engineering velocity.
• Recruit, develop, and retain top engineering talent; build a diverse, high-performing organization with a strong pipeline of future leaders.
• Collaborate across EMR and AWS Data Processing with peer Sr SDMs and Directors to align on shared infrastructure, resolve cross-team dependencies, and contribute to org-wide engineering strategy.
• Represent the Workload Management organization in senior leadership reviews, customer engagements, and cross-org forums with clarity and conviction.

About the team
ABOUT AWS:
Diverse Experiences
Amazon 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.

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 flexible work hours and arrangements are part of our culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve in the cloud.

Inclusive Team Culture
Here at AWS, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Our employee-led affinity groups foster a culture of inclusion that empower us to be proud of our differences. Ongoing events and learning experiences, including our Conversations on Race and Ethnicity and AmazeCon conferences, inspire us to never stop embracing our uniqueness.

Mentorship and 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.

Basic qualifications

• 10+ years of engineering experience
• 5+ years of engineering team management experience
• 10+ years of planning, designing, developing and delivering consumer software experience
• Experience partnering with product or program management teams
• Experience managing multiple concurrent programs, projects and development teams in an Agile environment

Preferred qualifications

• Experience designing and developing large scale, high-traffic applications
• Experience partnering with product and program management teams
• Experience establishing metrics for measurement of engineering and operational excellence

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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, CA, East Palo Alto - 253,100.00 - 342,300.00 USD annually
USA, WA, Redmond - 220,100.00 - 297,700.00 USD annually