Advertisers and the tools they rely on are rapidly adopting AI agents to plan, optimize, and execute their advertising. As agents begin to act on behalf of advertisers — making decisions, calling APIs, and spending budgets — a new question becomes foundational: how do we know who an agent is, what it’s allowed to do, and how do we keep every action safe, scoped, and auditable?
Our team builds the identity and authorization infrastructure that answers that question for AI agents across Amazon Ads. We define how agents are registered and given a verifiable identity, how they authenticate, how their permissions are scoped to exactly what an advertiser has authorized, and how every action they take is attributable and reviewable. This is foundational infrastructure for a fast-moving, emerging space.
As the SDM for this team, you will lead a team of engineers designing and delivering these critical services at scale. You’ll work at the intersection of identity, authorization, and
distributed systems, set technical strategy in a domain where industry best practices are still being written, and influence senior stakeholders on architecture and roadmap. The role calls for strong
system design judgment, comfort with ambiguity, and a track record of hiring and growing high-performing engineering teams.
Key job responsibilities
- Own the full software development lifecycle — from design through production launch and live-site operations — for core identity and authorization services
- Hire, develop, and lead a team of software engineers across junior to senior levels, raising the talent bar and growing future leaders
- Design and deliver secure, highly available,
low-latency services that authenticate agents and enforce fine-grained, advertiser-authorized access at scale
- Set technical strategy and define standards and best practices across design, testing, deployment, and operational excellence
- Partner with product, security, and partner engineering teams to translate requirements into a clear, prioritized roadmap
- Lead architecture reviews and provide technical guidance to engineers within and across teams, influencing senior stakeholders on key decisions
A day in the life
You start by unblocking your team — reviewing a design for a new authorization flow, weighing in on a tricky trade-off in a code or architecture review, and clearing dependencies. You meet with product and partner teams to align on requirements and sequencing, and spend focused time on technical strategy for how agent access will scale safely. You coach engineers through 1:1s, dive deep on an operational issue when needed, and make sure the team is delivering with high quality and a strong customer-obsessed bar. Throughout, you balance shipping near-term commitments with investing in the long-term platform.
About the team
We are a team building foundational infrastructure for the agentic era of advertising. Our mission is to make it safe and simple for AI agents to act on behalf of advertisers — with a verifiable identity, clearly scoped permissions, and full auditability for every action. We operate in an emerging space, so we value curiosity, strong technical judgment, the willingness to invent where no playbook exists, and a culture of earning trust through candor and high standards. We obsess over our customers — the advertisers, developers, and internal teams who build on what we deliver — and we care as much about how we work together as what we ship.
- 3+ years of engineering team management experience
- 7+ years of working directly within engineering teams experience
- 3+ years of designing or architecting (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
- 8+ years of leading the definition and development of multi tier web services experience
- Knowledge of engineering practices and patterns for the full software/hardware/networks development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, certification, and livesite operations
- Experience partnering with product or program management teams
- Experience in communicating with users, other technical teams, and senior leadership to collect requirements, describe software product features, technical designs, and
product strategy- Experience in recruiting, hiring, mentoring/coaching and managing teams of Software Engineers to improve their skills, and make them more effective, product software engineers
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, NY, New York - 203,400.00 - 275,200.00 USD annually