Database Engineer Jobs in Washington

At Amazon, our tech isn't just a tool, it's your playground. Our engineers work on scalable systems, cloud services, and customer-facing products that operate at global scale. This is an environment where you learn by building. Whether you're creating cloud-native solutions, optimizing machine learning models, or building products that drive experiences for millions of customers around the globe, your work reaches the world, fast. You'll take ownership early, collaborate across teams and disciplines, and grow your skills as you tackle new problems. There's no single path forward here, with a chance to explore different directions and shape your journey as you go. This is where ambition meets opportunity and, where the impact of what you build helps define what comes next, for customers and for you.

What's in it for you? An internship at Amazon means real responsibility from day one. You'll build, test, and learn alongside people who want to see you succeed, while making an impact that reaches far beyond campus.

As a Database Engineering Intern on the Amazon Redshift team, you will have the opportunity to work alongside experienced database and software engineers to solve challenging problems in cloud database technology. You will gain hands-on experience with database systems, data warehousing, performance analysis, automation, and distributed computing while contributing to projects that impact AWS customers.

Joining the Amazon Redshift team gives you the opportunity to:

• Work on a widely used cloud data warehouse product
• Learn about database internals, distributed systems, and data warehousing
• Work with experienced engineers and receive mentorship throughout your internship
• Gain hands-on experience analyzing database workloads and performance
• Develop software and automation tools that improve database engineering processes
• Solve real-world technical problems at cloud scale
• Learn how large-scale data systems are designed, tested, and optimized

Key job responsibilities
As a Database Engineering Intern, you will work with engineers and technical teams to learn and contribute to database engineering projects.

Depending on your experience and interests, you may:

• Assist with database design, data modeling, and SQL development
• Write and optimize SQL queries involving multiple tables and large datasets
• Analyze database workloads and help identify opportunities for performance improvements
• Participate in performance benchmarking and testing of database workloads
• Develop scripts and software tools to automate repetitive engineering tasks
• Learn about distributed database architectures, query processing, and database system internals
• Investigate technical issues and work with engineers to identify and evaluate potential solutions
• Participate in design discussions and technical reviews
• Document technical findings and communicate results clearly to team members
• Collaborate with engineers to build reliable, scalable, and easy-to-use database solutions

You will receive guidance and mentorship from experienced engineers while gaining practical experience working on technologies used by customers around the world.

A day in the life
Why AWS?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and continue to innovate, helping startups, enterprises, and organizations around the world build and operate their businesses in the cloud.

Inclusive Team Culture
At AWS, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Our employee-led affinity groups foster a culture of inclusion that empowers us to be proud of our differences. Ongoing events and learning experiences inspire us to continue embracing our uniqueness.

Mentorship & Career Growth
Interns have opportunities to learn from experienced engineers through mentorship, knowledge sharing, and hands-on project work. We provide resources and experiences designed to help you develop your technical skills and grow as a professional.

Work/Life Balance
We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home. We strive to create a supportive and flexible working environment where people can do their best work.

AWS values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the preferred qualifications and skills listed above, we encourage you to apply. If your career is just starting or you have gained experience through coursework, personal projects, research, or other non-traditional paths, we want to hear from you.

About the team
Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides companies of all sizes with an infrastructure web services platform in the cloud. Amazon Redshift is a rapidly growing, fully managed, petabyte-scale cloud data warehouse that enables customers to analyze large volumes of structured and semi-structured data using standard SQL.

The Amazon Redshift team builds innovative cloud data warehouse technology that helps customers analyze data at massive scale. Our engineers work on challenging problems involving distributed systems, database performance, scalability, reliability, and cloud computing.

We value curiosity, learning, and a willingness to take on challenging problems. Interns are encouraged to ask questions, explore new technologies, and contribute ideas while developing their technical skills.