Typical responsibilities for L7 SDE (Principal Enginer) @ Amazon ?
Jan 19, 2018
42 Comments
What does a typical day look like ?
What kind/scale of project you are expected to lead ?
How much of the day to day work is coding yourself vs Architectural decisions ?
Also, Is PE equivalent to a Director Engineering role, or is that L8/L10 ?
Also what can be expected salary range ?
Answers to all or a subset of questions are appreciated. Thanks in advance!
#amazon
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Source: Sr PE now. PE for many years before that: there were less than 80 when I became a PE.
Feel free to PM me.
Most PE’s are snowflakes so there is a lot of variation in what their days look like.
Most spend some time actually coding (though not likely every day), some mentoring and hiring, design review for teams all across amazon doing things you may be familiar with, working on the health of your org, code review, reviewing and writing strategy docs and other 6 pagers, etc.
Some PE’s spend a lot of time coding. But the average time is probably 15%. There is absolutely an expectation of coding. This is different than most architect roles at other companies.
Salary range is very broad. Like probably a 3x band. Amazon has few levels.