Amazon Leo is Amazon's low Earth orbit satellite network. Our mission is to deliver fast, reliable broadband connectivity to customers beyond the reach of existing networks. From households to small businesses, schools, hospitals, and government agencies, Amazon Leo will serve communities and organizations operating in places without dependable internet access.

We are seeking an exceptional System Development Engineer for our Network Operations team within the Optical Inter-Satellite Link (OISL) organization. This is a high-impact role where you will be a key contributor to the Network Operations function of OISL — building and operating the tooling, automation, and monitoring systems that support a revolutionary laser communication network connecting thousands of satellites in space.

The Role
This is an individual contributor role. You will contribute to the end-to-end Network Operations capability for OISL, including building tools and services for monitoring and incident response, driving automation of operational workflows, and supporting operational readiness as the constellation scales. You will partner with engineers across the organization to develop solutions that improve laser link reliability and availability.

Export Control Requirement:
Due to applicable export control laws and regulations, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Key job responsibilities
Network Operations Support & Execution
Support the OISL Network Operations strategy by contributing to tooling development, automation initiatives, and process improvements.
Participate in the NetOps on-call program: contribute to escalation workflows, automated ticketing, runbooks, and incident response.
Support operational cadence: assist with metrics reviews, readiness assessments, and capacity planning activities.

Automation & Tooling
Build scalable services that automate monitoring, fault detection, classification, and ticketing for the optical inter-satellite link network.
Develop data pipelines for KPI tracking, anomaly detection, and proactive issue identification.
Build observability platforms — dashboards, alerting, and real-time monitoring at scale.
Apply ML/AI for fault correlation, root cause analysis, and predictive failure detection.

Cross-Functional Collaboration
Partner with hardware, software, and ground network teams to support system reliability improvements.
Contribute to investigations into complex link failures and constellation-level fault patterns.
Participate in architecture reviews and program planning as a Network Operations representative
Individual Contribution.

Hands-on development of tools, services, and automation (Python, Spark SQL, cloud services).
Design testing strategies for distributed satellite network systems.
Author technical specifications and operational documentation.

A day in the life
You review the ticket queue and real-time satellite link health, spot degradation patterns, query telemetry, correlate with constellation changes, and work with Hardware and Embedded Software experts to help root cause issues. You participate in cross-functional syncs on recurring failures, help build automated remediation workflows and ticketing pipelines that eliminate manual triage, contribute to code reviews, maintain on-call runbooks, and identify observability gaps to close.

About the team
The OISL Network Operations team is responsible for the operational monitoring, troubleshooting, and reliability of 10,000+ optical laser links carrying customer traffic across a LEO satellite constellation. We build production-grade software services and tools to automate fault detection, classification, and resolution at scale. Our team operates at the intersection of network operations and software development — monitoring laser link health in real time, automating incident workflows, and driving cross-functional improvements with hardware and software engineering teams.

Basic qualifications

• Experience in automating, deploying, and supporting large-scale infrastructure
• Experience programming with at least one modern language such as Python, Ruby, Golang, Java, C++, C#, Rust
• Experience with Linux/Unix
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines build processes
• 3+ years of experience in the aerospace industry or networking infrastructure.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with distributed systems at scale
• Strong communications skills, ability to work collaboratively in a team environment, and enjoyment of learning and teaching new skills
• Demonstrated ability to drive requirements for concepts of operation and space systems
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electronics & Communication, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
• 3+ years of non-internship experience in network operations, mission operations, free-space optical communication, networking lab testing environments, DevOps, or site reliability engineering (SRE).

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, Redmond - 129,200.00 - 174,800.00 USD annually