Software Development Engineer, Prime Video Play Starts

Job Description

Are you eager to shape the future of video entertainment, from movies and TV shows to live sports events? Do you enjoy tackling complex challenges within large-scale systems? If so, we invite you to help build the future of entertainment with us at Prime Video!

Since its launch in 2007, Prime Video has been transforming the traditional television and movie industry. With a rapidly expanding library of high-quality content and availability in over 240 countries and territories, Prime Video is now a key strategic priority for Amazon. We invest heavily in acquiring, producing, and programming a diverse range of TV shows, movies, and live events. Our exclusive titles include "The Lord of the Rings," "The Boys," "The Wheel of Time," and "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," among others. Beyond our extensive On-Demand catalog, Prime Video offers a wide selection of Linear Channels and Live Sports, featuring major events like Thursday Night Football, the English Premier League, NBA, MLB, ATP tennis, French Open, and the UEFA Champions League. If this sparks your interest, read on!

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain highly scalable systems that power Prime Video’s streaming services.
• Define the architecture for our software, utilizing a broad range of technologies, programming languages, and systems.
• Implement and operate APIs that manage billions of playback start requests, ensuring seamless, low-latency content delivery.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to influence the overall technical strategy and contribute to the team’s long-term roadmap.
• Communicate effectively across teams and stakeholders, ensuring alignment with technical goals and project timelines.
• Apply creative problem-solving skills to address complex challenges.
• Stay ahead of industry trends and new technologies, integrating them where appropriate.
• Mentor and guide other engineers, contributing to the overall growth and success of the engineering team.

A Day in the Life

As a software engineer on the Prime Video team, your day starts with diving into hands-on coding and technical problem-solving. You’re not just writing code—you’re helping to shape the architecture of complex systems that millions of people rely on every day. One of the most rewarding aspects of this role is seeing your work come to life when friends and family use Prime Video to watch their favorite shows and live sports.

Your primary focus is on designing and maintaining the APIs that power every title on Prime Video. This involves creating highly reliable and low-latency systems that ensure users can start streaming their content with just a click. The challenges are unique, especially when it comes to managing the sheer scale of requests handled daily. To tackle these, you will leverage AWS technologies like EC2, S3, DynamoDB, Kinesis, and CloudFront.

Collaboration is a big part of this role. You will spend time working with a cross-functional team to align on technical strategies and define the long-term roadmap. It’s exciting to influence decisions that will impact the future of Prime Video. Throughout the day, you will switch between deep focus on coding and brainstorming sessions with teammates to solve tough problems.

Beyond the technical work, you will also play a key role in mentoring junior engineers. Sharing your knowledge and seeing others grow is incredibly fulfilling. You’re always encouraged to push the boundaries of what’s possible, and you have the freedom to explore new ideas that can elevate our service to the next level.

About The Team

The Play Starts team is at the core of Prime Video’s streaming experience. We manage essential, multi-tenant platforms that handle customer interactions from the moment they press play. Our mission is to ensure seamless content delivery, personalizing each viewer's experience based on their subscriptions and device specifications. We handle content manifest delivery, synchronize play states across devices, and manage concurrent streaming. Moreover, we play a key role in securing content and ensuring regional compliance, including DRM protection and resolving location-specific challenges. The services we operate are tier-1, critical to both Live and Video-on-Demand playback, and we handle billions of playback start requests every month. Our team’s infrastructure is fundamental to Prime Video’s commitment to delivering a world-class viewing experience.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications

• 3+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
• 2+ years of non-internship design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
• Experience programming with at least one software programming language

Preferred Qualifications

• 3+ years of full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations experience
• Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent

Join us and be a part of the team that’s setting the standard for the future of streaming entertainment!