January 5, 2024 · 7 min read

AWS developer job description

AWS developers set up, maintain, and monitor web apps built on Amazon’s platform. These developers understand AWS’s core services and apply best practices regarding security and scalability.

So when companies need a specialist to build apps, transfer services to the cloud, or run the infrastructure powered by AWS, they hire an AWS developer. And because so many companies use AWS, these specialists are in high demand.

Unfortunately, this demand means hiring the right developer for your company can take time and effort. It can also cost you thousands of dollars if you hire incorrectly. What you need is an AWS developer job description template.

The good news is that help is at hand. Here at Gun.io, we’ve helped hundreds of companies – from Fortune 500s to startups – hire talented developers, so get in touch if you’d like us to help. However, if you’d prefer to go through the hiring process yourself, the AWS developer job description template below can help you attract highly skilled programmers.

Let’s go!

AWS developer job description

This job description will do three things:

It will introduce candidates to your company’s culture and values
It will help candidates understand what the role will entail
It will get candidates excited about the possibility of working for your company!

You’re welcome to copy and edit this template as you see fit.

Okay, so let’s start with a detail that’s easy to overlook: The job title.

Job title

Think of your job title like a newspaper headline. It’s the first thing candidates see before reading your AWS developer job description, so it must capture their attention. After all, you want to attract candidates and get them to click through.

So how do you do this?

You want to keep the title short, but there’s a line. Make it too short, and you won’t capture a candidate’s attention. For example, “AWS Developer” won’t stand out on a job board.

Instead, you should thread in qualifiers. Qualifiers can be things like seniority level and the type of AWS developer you’re looking for (i.e. EC2 [computing], S3 [storage], RDS [database], Lambda [serverless functions], etc.)

Other technical qualifiers can help too, like required languages or frameworks. So can non-technical qualifiers, such as whether the role is full-time, part-time, or freelance. The role’s location (remote or office-based) is also worth mentioning.

A good example of a job title is “Senior S3 AWS Developer – Full-Time (Remote)”. It details the seniority level, type of work, and location.

Now that you’ve got your job title, it’s time to start crafting your AWS developer job description.

About the company

You want to make a strong first impression with your job description. One way to do this is by talking about your company in a way that gets candidates excited about what you do. Paint your company in its best light and highlight what makes it a great workplace.

This section can highlight key information about your company’s culture, size, mission, goals, and perks. These include benefits, office hours, or remote working possibilities. Anything that makes your company stand out.

Unlike most companies, we also try to inject humor into our job descriptions when recruiting at Gun.io. We’ll let you judge whether that’s working for us! (See below.)

Here’s one we made earlier:

About Gun.io

Gun.io is a technology company that connects great companies and proven software engineers who are the world’s best-hired guns. Our mission is to create joy through connection, collaboration, and achievement for the world’s professional class.

We believe that the current system for hiring and being hired as a software engineer isn’t working. For hirers, the process is long and time-intensive, typically requiring a developer from their team to pause their other work and manage technical vetting. On the other side, job seekers must wade through recruiter spam, repetitive interviews, code tests, and cryptic job descriptions just to answer the question: is this a job I want and would be good at?

Gun.io’s vetting and matching are designed and run by a team of developers passionate about fixing technical hiring. Each job posted to the Gun.io platform is vetted by a senior developer, and each new job seeker who joins the platform has a 1-1 conversation with a member of the team so we can personally pitch them to clients they’d love.

We believe in excellence, taking risks, and speaking the truth, and we take a talent-first approach to everything we do. Our fully-remote team is highly collaborative and indulgently nerdy. You’ll love working with Gun.io if:

You’re passionate about making talent and opportunity more accessible for all, especially those outside of the Silicon Valley bubble.
You have exceptional follow-through and organizational skills, and value teammates with the same.
You love chasing big ideas, pitching them to stakeholders, and taking the initiative to implement and test them.
You consider yourself to be a linchpin, not a cog.
You’re very nerdy about something. Star Wars, a particular subreddit, Web3, backyard chickens, famous guitar history, anything.
Career growth and financial success are core motivations for you.
You thrive in remote office environments.
You’re looking for a team culture that is curious, respectful, supportive, and at least once a day, hilarious.

About this role

You’re hiring an AWS developer (or three), and these devs know what a AWS job entails. They’ve done it before. But what does an AWS role mean to you?

You want to get to the point on your AWS developer job description. State what you’re looking for and what tasks a successful applicant will do when they join your company. One or two sentences should do the trick.

Here’s a sample:

To help drive our mission, our Programming team is looking for a Senior AWS developer. This developer will migrate our web infrastructure to AWS and map out a plan so that it’s easy to maintain.

AWS developer responsibilities

This section is arguably the most important part of the AWS developer job description.

You want to be clear about the responsibilities associated with the role, so list them all. Be concise and clarify what you expect from a candidate if they join your company.

Here’s how it might look:

Understand the current infrastructure and suggest changes
Document best practices and strategies regarding app deployment and infrastructure maintenance
Work with our IT team to migrate our infrastructure to AWS with zero downtime
Set up a monitoring stack
Develop different AWS services, including API, RDS instance, and Lambda, to build serverless apps
Define service capacity planning strategies
Write infrastructure as code using CloudFormation or similar
{{ Add any other relevant responsibilities here }}

AWS developer requirements

Alright, it’s time for the nitty-gritty details. What will your AWS developer do on the job?

This section lists all the professional qualifications a candidate needs to apply for this role. It also includes mandatory technical skills.

Try not to go over the top here. For example, only include skills or years of experience if it’s a dealbreaker. Also, be realistic. Most candidates don’t have 20+ years of experience, so asking for this will significantly reduce your talent pool.

Here’s a sample:

3 years of experience in planning, designing, developing, architecting, and implementing cloud solutions on AWS platforms
Strong understanding of core AWS services, uses, and AWS architecture best practices
Hands-on experience in different domains, including database architecture, business intelligence, machine learning, advanced analytics, big data, etc.
Experience with Docker and Kubernetes
Strong notions of security best practices (e.g. using IAM Roles, KMS, etc.)
Previous exposure to large-scale systems design
Ability to troubleshoot distributed systems
Knowledge of writing infrastructure as code (IaC) using CloudFormation or Terraform
Experience with building or maintaining cloud-native applications
{{ Make sure to mention any other frameworks, libraries, or other technologies relevant to your project }}
{{ List any education level or certification you may require }}

Benefits of this role for AWS developers

It’s time to seal the deal!

In this section of your AWS developer job description, you can list the additional benefits/perks a candidate will receive by joining your company.

Here’s a sample:

{{Career & growth opportunities}}
{{Attractive salary and 401k matching}}
{{Medical Insurance}}
{{Remote working opportunities}}
{{Incentives and perks, such as the office’s location and flexible vacation allowance}}