Amazon AWS Data Center Technician Salary 2026: $27-57 per hour
Amazon posts $27.83 to $57.50 an hour for AWS data center technicians on the server side, which is $57,900 to $119,600 a year at 40 hours, plus sign-on payments and restricted stock. Cleared roles reach $58.41 and the facilities track reaches $65.91. Read from live amazon.jobs requisitions, September 7, 2026.
Those are the numbers Amazon publishes on its own careers site, not a crowd-sourced average. Every band on this page was re-read off a live posting on amazon.jobs on September 7, 2026, and the requisition number and date sit beside each figure.
Pay moves by market, by which of Amazon’s two technician tracks you apply to, and by how senior the specific opening is. This guide covers the full ladder from technician to facility manager, the difference between the server side and the facilities side, how the sign-on and stock actually work, and where Amazon sits against Google, Microsoft, Equinix and CoreWeave.
Amazon AWS data center technician salary: the key numbers
- $27.83 to $58.41 per hour, the full posted range across Amazon’s server-side Data Center Technician and DCO Tech requisitions in the United States (amazon.jobs postings 10440148 and 10529390, read September 7, 2026)
- $30.91 to $54.18 per hour, the band Amazon posts most often, live in North Carolina, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Pennsylvania (amazon.jobs postings 10440148, 10504946 and 10410625, read September 7, 2026)
- $37.64 to $65.91 per hour, the highest technician band Amazon publishes, for a Data Center Engineering Operations Technician across Northern Virginia and Frederick, Maryland (amazon.jobs posting 3146851, read September 7, 2026)
- $33.36 to $58.41 per hour, the cleared version of the same server-side job, which pays just under 8 percent more at both ends of the band (amazon.jobs postings 10529390 and 10497100, read September 7, 2026)
- $86,400 to $208,000 per year, the full span Amazon posts for Data Center Chief Engineer, the salaried role a technician is promoted into (amazon.jobs postings 10529006 and 10522158, read September 7, 2026)
- Sign-on payments and restricted stock units, on top of the hourly base, stated word for word in Amazon’s technician postings with neither amount published (amazon.jobs posting 3146851, read September 7, 2026)
Amazon AWS data center technician salary overview
Amazon publishes a pay band on every data center technician posting. The band runs $27.83 an hour at the bottom of its cheapest markets to $57.50 at the top of its most expensive, which works out to $57,900 to $119,600 a year at 40 hours before overtime, shift differential, sign-on payments or stock. Postings that require a security clearance run higher still, to $58.41.
Crowd-sourced salary sites publish a different set of numbers for this job. None of those numbers appear anywhere on this page. Glassdoor, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Levels.fyi, PayScale and Blind all work from anonymous entries that nobody at Amazon writes or checks, and their averages do not match the bands Amazon prints on its own requisitions. Where this page gives a figure, that figure came off a posting.
A typical day covers hardware swaps, ticket triage, rack and row work, and physical security checks across the floor. For a read on how Amazon compares against the market as a whole, see the data center technician salary guide.
| Pay component | What Amazon posts (2026) | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly base, server track | $27.83 to $57.50 per hour | amazon.jobs 10440148 and 10501020, Sept 7 2026 |
| Hourly base, server track, cleared | $33.36 to $58.41 per hour | amazon.jobs 10529390 and 10497100, Sept 7 2026 |
| Hourly base, facilities track | $32.88 to $65.91 per hour | amazon.jobs 3165351 and 3146851, Sept 7 2026 |
| Annualised at 40 hours a week | $57,900 to $137,100 | Converted at 2,080 hours |
| Sign-on payments | Stated in the posting, amount not published | amazon.jobs 3146851, Sept 7 2026 |
| Restricted stock units | Stated in the posting, grant size not published | amazon.jobs 3146851, Sept 7 2026 |
| Crowd-sourced averages | Not used anywhere on this page | No figure here came from a salary aggregator |
The Amazon data center pay ladder, technician to facility manager
Every band in this table came off a live Amazon posting. No row is an estimate.
| Rung | Amazon’s own title | Posted base | At 40 hours a week | What Amazon asks for | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| L3, low-cost markets | Data Center Technician | $27.83–$48.75 / hr | $57,900–$101,400 | 2+ years server hardware and layer 1 and 2 networking | Rack installs, hardware break-fix, layer 1 and 2 troubleshooting, ticket queue |
| L3, most markets | Data Center Technician, DCO Tech | $30.91–$54.18 / hr | $64,300–$112,700 | 2+ years server hardware and layer 1 and 2 networking | Same work, higher-cost market |
| L3, top commercial band | DCO Tech, Hamlet NC | $32.88–$57.50 / hr | $68,400–$119,600 | 1+ years electrical or mechanical, or data center | Highest server-track band on the commercial board |
| L3, cleared | Data Center Technician, ADC InfraOps DCO | $33.36–$58.41 / hr | $69,400–$121,500 | Active TS/SCI with polygraph, plus A+, Network+, Security+ or CND | Classified regions, Jessup MD and San Antonio TX |
| L3 facilities track | Data Center Engineering Operations Technician | $32.88–$57.50 / hr | $68,400–$119,600 | 2+ years electrical, mechanical, HVAC or fire suppression | Generators, switchgear, chillers, cooling towers, fire and life safety |
| L3 facilities, Northern Virginia | Data Center Engineering Operations Technician | $37.64–$65.91 / hr | $78,300–$137,100 | Same, in Amazon’s densest market | Same, on a Data Center Alley campus |
| L4 | Data Center Chief Engineer | $86,400–$208,000 / yr, across postings | Salaried | 2+ years electrical or mechanical, or mission critical facilities | Owns a site’s critical environment, leads the technician crew |
| L4 to L5 | Data Center Controls Engineer | $100,200–$186,100 / yr | Salaried | Building management and power monitoring systems | BMS and EPMS across multiple sites |
| L5 | Data Center Operations Manager | $70,700–$188,500 / yr, across postings | Salaried | People management on top of the technical base | Runs the technician team on a site or shift |
| L5 to L6 | Data Center Facility Manager | $107,700–$193,000 / yr, across postings | Salaried | Site leadership | Owns the facility, budget and vendor relationships |
How we built this table. Every band is taken from a live Amazon job posting on amazon.jobs, re-read on September 7, 2026. Hourly figures are converted at 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year. Amazon publishes a low-market to high-market band on each posting rather than a single salary, so the same title appears with different bands in different states, and those bands move inside a single week.
Amazon does not publish level codes on technician postings, so the rung column uses the level Amazon itself states in the title where it states one and the widely reported level otherwise. None of these figures is a crowd-sourced average.
Above the technician rungs the ladder stops being hourly. Chief Engineer, Controls Engineer and Operations Manager are the three doors out of the floor, and they lead into the data center engineer, data center manager and operations leadership tracks.
Amazon prices the same job title three different ways
Geography is not the only thing that moves the band. Hamlet, North Carolina has carried all three server-track bands for the same work inside a single month: $27.98 to $48.99 on requisition 10502631, $30.91 to $54.18 on requisitions 10504946, 10504983, 10504923 and 10504991, and $32.88 to $57.50 on requisition 10501020. Same town, $4.90 an hour apart at the bottom of the band and $8.51 apart at the top.
The band tracks the seniority of the specific opening, not just the cost of living. Comparing two Amazon postings by their headline range tells you less than it looks like it does.
Amazon does not publish level codes on technician jobs
Search amazon.jobs for a data center technician role and you will find a title, a location and an hourly band, with no L number anywhere. Nine Data Center Chief Engineer requisitions read on September 7, 2026 carried no level in the title either. Amazon has used the form DCEO Chief Engineer L4 on earlier postings, but none of the requisitions live that day did.
Any site quoting you an exact L3 base salary at Amazon is quoting anonymous submissions, not an Amazon figure. The same goes for L2. Amazon does not hire AWS data center technicians at L2, and only a handful of L2 roles exist anywhere in the company.
AWS data center operations technician, DCO Tech, and why the name matters
The same Amazon job has three names, and knowing all three is the difference between finding the openings and missing them.
On the careers site, Amazon posts the server-side role as “Data Center Technician” in some markets and “DCO Tech” in others. DCO stands for Data Center Operations (DCO), the organisation that owns the server halls. In conversation, on resumes and in recruiter messages the same job is called an AWS data center operations technician. All three are the same badge and the same band, currently $27.83 to $57.50 an hour depending on the site.
The facilities organisation is Data Center Engineering Operations (DCEO), and its postings say Data Center Engineering Operations Technician.
This matters when you search. Type “data center technician” into amazon.jobs and the DCO Tech postings do not come back, because the words do not match. Type “DCO Tech” and you miss the ones posted under the long title. Search all four terms every time: data center technician, DCO Tech, data center engineering operations technician, and DCEO.
Amazon’s two technician tracks: DCO Tech and DCEO Technician
| DCO Tech, the server side | DCEO Technician, the facilities side | |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon’s posted title | Data Center Technician, or DCO Tech | Data Center Engineering Operations Technician |
| What you touch | Servers, racks, cables, network hardware | Generators, switchgear, UPS, chillers, cooling towers, fire suppression |
| Posted band in Sterling, Virginia | $30.91–$54.18 / hr | $37.64–$65.91 / hr |
| Same at 40 hours a week | $64,300–$112,700 | $78,300–$137,100 |
| Experience Amazon asks for | 2+ years server hardware troubleshooting, plus 2+ years layer 1 and 2 networking | 2+ years electrical, mechanical, HVAC or fire suppression |
| Degree in the posting | Bachelor’s in IT or computer science listed as preferred | High school diploma, no degree language |
| Physical demands stated | Lift and rack equipment up to 40 pounds | Work at heights and from ladders, shifts longer than eight hours |
| Who it suits | Help desk, IT support, military IT, network technicians | Electricians, HVAC technicians, marine and power plant operators, Navy nukes |
| Promotes into | Systems and network engineering roles | Data Center Chief Engineer at $86,400 to $208,000 |
At the same Amazon campuses in Sterling, Virginia, the facilities technician band starts $6.73 an hour above the server technician band and tops out $11.73 higher. Over a 2,080 hour year that is about $14,000 more at the bottom and $24,400 more at the top, for the same commute to the same building.
The trade is the work itself. Amazon asks the facilities track for hands-on electrical and mechanical experience and does not ask for a degree, and the server track asks for two or more years of server hardware troubleshooting and two or more years of layer 1 and 2 networking, with a bachelor’s degree listed as preferred. An electrician or an HVAC technician who applies to the Data Center Technician posting is applying to the lower paid of Amazon’s two technician jobs, and most of them never learn the other one exists, because Amazon does not use the word technician the same way twice.
If the facilities side is the better fit, the pay for that career is covered in more depth in the critical facilities engineer salary guide.
Amazon data center technician salary with a security clearance
Amazon runs a third technician track that most candidates never see. It is called Amazon Dedicated Cloud Infrastructure Operations (ADC InfraOps), and it staffs the AWS regions built for United States government customers. The job title is the same. The band is not.
| What you are comparing | Commercial DCO Tech | Cleared ADC InfraOps DCO | The gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon’s posted title | Data Center Technician, DCO Tech | Data Center Technician, ADC InfraOps DCO | Same work, different organisation |
| Hourly floor | $30.91 | $33.36 | $2.45 more, up 7.9 percent |
| Hourly ceiling | $54.18 | $58.41 | $4.23 more, up 7.8 percent |
| At 2,080 hours a year | $64,300 to $112,700 | $69,400 to $121,500 | About $5,100 to $8,800 more a year |
| What Amazon asks for | 2+ years server hardware, plus 2+ years layer 1 and 2 networking | Active TS/SCI with polygraph, plus A+, Network+, Security+ or CND | The clearance replaces the experience bar |
| Same-state check, Texas | Wink, $30.91 to $54.18 | San Antonio, $33.36 to $58.41 | Same state, same week, same board |
| Requisition read September 7, 2026 | 10440148 | 10529390 and 10497100 | All three live that day |
Run the arithmetic and the premium is almost the same at both ends of the band. Amazon adds 7.9 percent to the floor and 7.8 percent to the ceiling. That is not a rounding artefact from two markets that happen to differ, because the San Antonio and Wink postings sit in the same state on the same board in the same week. It is one multiplier applied to a whole band, which is what a pay structure looks like when a company is pricing a qualification rather than a location. The clearance is worth about $5,100 a year at the bottom of the band and about $8,800 at the top.
The catch is that Amazon does not sponsor the clearance for these roles. Both requisitions require a current, active TS/SCI with polygraph on the day you apply, and both name United States citizenship as a hard requirement. In practice the premium goes to people who earned the clearance somewhere else, most often in the military or at a defence contractor. For a veteran leaving a cleared job, this is the largest pay difference on Amazon’s data center board that does not require moving to Northern Virginia. The route in is covered in the guide to the military to data center career path.
One more thing worth knowing before you chase the cleared band. The experience bar is lower, not higher. The commercial posting asks for two or more years of server hardware troubleshooting and two or more years of layer 1 and 2 networking. The cleared posting asks for a high school diploma or a single certificate, A+, Network+, Security+ or CND. Amazon is not paying for more skill on the cleared side. It is paying for a credential that takes a year or more to obtain and that it cannot hand out itself.
How much does a data center technician make at Amazon AWS
An entry technician on the server track starts at the bottom of the band for that site, so $27.83 an hour in Amazon’s cheapest markets and $32.88 in its most expensive. At 40 hours a week that is $57,900 to $68,400 a year.
A technician with two or more years lands in the band Amazon posts most often, $30.91 to $54.18 an hour, or $64,300 to $112,700 a year. Where a technician sits inside that band depends on the site and on how senior the specific opening was written to be.
The step up from technician is Data Center Chief Engineer, posted between $86,400 and $208,000 a year depending on the site, and Amazon asks for two or more years of electrical or mechanical work to get there. That is a short ladder by any standard.
How much does a data center technician make per hour at Amazon? Between $27.83 and $57.50 on the server track, $33.36 to $58.41 on the cleared server track, and up to $65.91 on the facilities track in Northern Virginia. Shift differential and overtime sit on top of those figures.
How much does a data center technician make in total compensation? Amazon states that sign-on payments and restricted stock units come on top of the hourly base, and publishes neither amount. That means no honest total compensation figure exists for this job, and this page does not print one. Anyone quoting a total comp number for an Amazon data center technician is quoting anonymous self-reported entries.
Amazon AWS data center pay by location
Amazon posts a different band in almost every market. These are the bands Amazon published, market by market, with the requisition each one was read from on September 7, 2026.
| Market | Track | Amazon’s posted band | At 40 hours a week | Requisition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sterling, Chantilly, Dulles, Herndon, Leesburg and Fredericksburg VA, Frederick MD | Facilities (DCEO) | $37.64–$65.91 / hr | $78,300–$137,100 | 3146851 |
| Sterling, Ashburn, Chantilly and Dulles, VA | Facilities (DCEO) | $37.00–$65.00 / hr | $77,000–$135,200 | 10471468 |
| Jessup, MD, clearance required | Server (ADC InfraOps DCO) | $33.36–$58.41 / hr | $69,400–$121,500 | 10529390 |
| San Antonio, TX, clearance required | Server (ADC InfraOps DCO) | $33.36–$58.41 / hr | $69,400–$121,500 | 10497100 |
| Canton, MS | Facilities (DCEO) | $33.00–$59.00 / hr | $68,600–$122,700 | 3204248 |
| Hamlet, NC | Server (DCO Tech) | $32.88–$57.50 / hr | $68,400–$119,600 | 10501020 |
| Fairless Hills, PA | Facilities (DCEO) | $32.88–$57.50 / hr | $68,400–$119,600 | 3165351 and 3165366 |
| Jessup, MD, clearance required | Facilities (ADC InfraOps DCEO) | $32.88–$57.50 / hr | $68,400–$119,600 | 10529108 |
| Plain City, OH, clearance required | Facilities (Cleared EOT) | $32.00–$57.00 / hr | $66,600–$118,600 | 10411544 |
| Hamlet NC, Sparks NV, Boardman Hermiston and Umatilla OR, Wink TX | Server (Data Center Technician) | $30.91–$54.18 / hr | $64,300–$112,700 | 10440148 |
| Manassas and Leesburg VA, Canton MS, New Albany OH, Berwick and Fairless Hills PA, Lithia Springs GA | Server (DCO Tech) | $30.00–$54.00 / hr | $62,400–$112,300 | 3167705 |
| Boardman and Umatilla, OR | Server (Data Center Technician) | $27.98–$48.99 / hr | $58,200–$101,900 | 10530762, 10432986 and 10433275 |
| Canton and Vicksburg, MS | Server (Data Center Technician) | $27.83–$48.75 / hr | $57,900–$101,400 | 10440148 |
The Northern Virginia cluster is Amazon’s highest-volume market and its highest-paying one, especially on the facilities side. Columbus, Ohio posts close behind on the facilities track with a cost of living roughly 25% lower, which makes the Columbus metro one of the strongest net-pay markets Amazon operates in.
Reno, Boardman and the Mississippi sites sit at the bottom of the posted range and pull heavier overtime during build-out phases, which closes some of the gap. Outside the United States, Amazon’s Dublin postings run in euros and are not directly comparable to any US band on this page.
For a deeper local market read, see the guides to data center technician salary Ashburn Virginia, data center jobs Columbus Ohio, data center jobs salary Seattle Washington, and the highest paying cities for data center engineers.
Amazon vs Google, Microsoft, Equinix and CoreWeave technician pay
| Employer | Title the employer actually posts | Published band | Annualized at 2,080 hrs | Midpoint | Source and date read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft, entry | Data Center Technician (ATR-B) | $23.65–$37.07 / hr | $49,192–$77,106 | $63,100 | Microsoft careers, Sept 2, 2026 |
| Equinix, Dallas TX | Data Center Customer Operations IV, night shift | $53,600–$80,400 / yr | Salaried | $67,000 | Equinix careers, Sept 3, 2026 |
| QTS, Ashburn VA | Critical Operations Technician I | $27.29–$41.73 / hr | $56,763–$86,798 | $71,800 | QTS careers, Sept 2, 2026 |
| CoreWeave, eight US markets | Data Center Technician | $65,000–$83,000 / yr | Salaried | $74,000 | CoreWeave careers, Sept 5, 2026 |
| CoreWeave, Ellendale ND | Data Center Technician | $65,000–$85,000 / yr | Salaried | $75,000 | CoreWeave careers, Sept 5, 2026 |
| Amazon, server track, Canton and Vicksburg MS | Data Center Technician | $27.83–$48.75 / hr | $57,886–$101,400 | $79,600 | amazon.jobs posting 10440148, Sept 7, 2026 |
| Digital Realty, Ashburn VA | Site Engineer I | $37.50–$41.00 / hr | $78,000–$85,280 | $81,600 | Digital Realty careers, Sept 2, 2026 |
| Meta, Aurora IL | Data Center Production Operations Engineer | $33.17–$47.60 / hr | $68,994–$99,008 | $84,000 | Meta posting text, Sept 6, 2026 |
| Equinix, Ashburn VA | Data Center Critical Facilities IV | $67,400–$101,000 / yr | Salaried | $84,200 | Equinix careers, Sept 3, 2026 |
| Oracle, Allen TX | Data Center Technician 2 | $27.07–$54.13 / hr | $56,300–$112,600 | $84,400 | Oracle posting 38545974, Sept 3, 2026 |
| Amazon, server track, NC, NV, OR and TX | Data Center Technician, posted in some markets as DCO Tech | $30.91–$54.18 / hr | $64,293–$112,694 | $88,500 | amazon.jobs posting 10440148, Sept 7, 2026 |
| Equinix, Silicon Valley | Data Center Critical Facilities Technician | $73,400–$110,200 / yr | Salaried | $91,800 | Equinix careers, Sept 3, 2026 |
| QTS, Manassas VA | Critical Operations Technician I | $35.47–$54.25 / hr | $73,778–$112,840 | $93,300 | QTS careers, Sept 2, 2026 |
| Microsoft, senior | Senior Data Center Technician (ATR-D) | $34.13–$56.54 / hr | $70,990–$117,603 | $94,300 | Microsoft careers, Sept 2, 2026 |
| Amazon, server track, cleared, Jessup MD and San Antonio TX | Data Center Technician, ADC InfraOps DCO | $33.36–$58.41 / hr | $69,389–$121,493 | $95,400 | amazon.jobs postings 10529390 and 10497100, Sept 7, 2026 |
| Google, entry | Data Center Technician II | $86,000–$118,000 / yr | Salaried | $102,000 | careers.google.com, Sept 2, 2026 |
| Meta, Mesa AZ and Los Lunas NM | Data Center Production Operations Engineer | $83,990–$130,000 / yr | Salaried | $107,000 | Meta posting text, Sept 6, 2026 |
| Amazon, facilities track, Northern Virginia and Frederick MD | Data Center Engineering Operations Technician | $37.64–$65.91 / hr | $78,291–$137,093 | $107,700 | amazon.jobs posting 3146851, Sept 7, 2026 |
| Digital Realty, Ashburn and Sterling VA | Lead Engineer | $52.73–$54.80 / hr | $109,678–$113,984 | $111,800 | Digital Realty careers, Sept 2, 2026 |
| Meta, Reynoldsburg OH | Data Center Production Operations Engineer | $51.92–$74.04 / hr | $107,994–$154,003 | $131,000 | Meta posting text, Sept 6, 2026 |
| Google, senior | Data Center Technician, IV | $122,000–$173,000 / yr | Salaried | $147,500 | careers.google.com, Sept 2, 2026 |
| OpenAI | No data center technician postings. Its sites are staffed by the companies that build and run them | Not published | Not published | Not published | openai.com/careers, Sept 3, 2026 |
How we built this table. Every row is a pay range the employer published on a live requisition, read on the date in the last column. Amazon and Meta rows carry the posting number or the market they were read from. The Meta rows come from the posting text itself, republished verbatim on third-party job boards, because metacareers.com would not render for us on September 6, 2026.
The midpoint column is arithmetic on our part, not an employer figure: it is the middle of the published band, annualized at 2,080 hours where the band is hourly. Two caveats apply to every row. Each employer publishes a new-hire range, which is not the same thing as an offer. And none of them publishes the equity grant that sits on top, so no total compensation comparison is possible from published data alone.
What is not here. No figure in this table came from Glassdoor, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Salary.com, Levels.fyi, PayScale, Comparably or Blind.
What we re-read on September 7, 2026
A note published here on September 6 said the $57.50 ceiling had come off Amazon’s server-track board. It was written off four requisitions and it was wrong. A wider read on September 7 found requisition 10501020, a DCO Tech role in Hamlet, North Carolina, live at $32.88 to $57.50 an hour. The ceiling never moved.
What the small sample got right is the floor. Requisition 10440148 carries $27.83 to $48.75 an hour in Canton and Vicksburg, Mississippi, fifteen cents an hour below the $27.98 this page used to lead with. That $27.98 is still live as well, on requisitions 10530762, 10432986 and 10433275 in Boardman and Umatilla, Oregon. Both numbers are real. They sit on different postings.
The lesson is not that Amazon cut or raised anything. Amazon runs several hundred data center requisitions at once, each carrying its own band, so any figure drawn from a handful of them is a sample and not a rate. Every figure on this page now names the requisition it came from and the date it was read. The only number that binds is the one on the posting in front of you.
Compared on posted base pay, Amazon has the lowest floor in this table and one of the widest spreads. A server-track technician in Canton or Vicksburg, Mississippi starts at $27.83 an hour, about $57,900 a year, which is below the floor of every Google, Meta, CoreWeave and Equinix band on the list except the Equinix Dallas night shift. A facilities technician in Northern Virginia reaches $65.91 an hour, about $137,100 before stock. Google and Meta post the highest ceilings, at $173,000 and about $154,000. CoreWeave posts the tightest band on the list at $65,000 to $83,000.
The comparison has a wrinkle worth naming. Amazon and its peers publish a low-market to high-market range on every posting, which is not the same thing as an offer, and none of them publish the stock grant that sits on top.
Full detail on the two closest comparisons sits in the Google data center technician salary guide and the Microsoft data center technician salary guide.
L3 data center technician pay at Amazon
Amazon’s technician job is widely reported as an L3 role, and searches for “AWS data center technician L3 salary” and “DCO L3” land here for that reason. The honest answer is the one above: Amazon posts $30.91 to $54.18 an hour for that job in most markets and does not print the level on the posting.
For how L3 pay works across the industry rather than at Amazon specifically, see the L3 data center technician salary guide.
Bonus, overtime, and benefits that affect technician pay
Shift differentials add 7% to 15% to base hourly pay, depending on the site and shift pattern. Twelve-hour rotations, night shifts and weekend coverage carry the highest premiums.
Overtime is time-and-a-half above 40 hours a week, with double-time on holidays at most US sites. A technician working a heavy overtime schedule at a busy Columbus or Northern Virginia site can add $15,000 to $25,000 a year on top of base, especially during build-out phases when problem volume is highest.
Amazon’s technician postings state that sign-on payments and restricted stock units are part of the package. Amazon does not publish the size of either. Its RSU vesting is back-loaded across four years, roughly 5%, 15%, 40% and 40%, which is why the sign-on carries most of the first two years and why year four is where the stock starts to matter.
Health, dental, vision and 401k matching round out the package, along with the standard Amazon employee discount.
How to find Amazon AWS data center job openings
Search Amazon Jobs at amazon.jobs and filter by job category “Data Center” plus your target location.
Run all four search terms every time: data center technician, DCO Tech, data center engineering operations technician, and DCEO. Each one returns postings the others miss.
Amazon lists between 800 and 1,500 open data center technician roles globally in any given week, based on postings tracked across 2026. The largest concentration sits in Northern Virginia and the Columbus metro, with strong secondary clusters in Oregon, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Set job alerts on LinkedIn, Indeed and Built In for “Amazon Data Center Technician” to catch new openings within 24 hours. Message technical recruiters on LinkedIn directly: search “Amazon data center recruiter” plus your target location and send a short, specific note about your hands-on experience.
The AWS workforce accelerator data center program is a free training pathway that hires graduates directly into technician openings in select markets.
Resume and interview tips for data center technician candidates
Put hands-on hardware work in the top third of the resume. A good Amazon technician resume quantifies everything: servers maintained, ticket volume handled per day, uptime percentages, projects completed.
List certifications high on the page. CompTIA Server+, Network+, A+, CCNA or a cloud practitioner credential all get scanned for when recruiters source candidates.
Applying to the facilities track changes the list. Amazon asks that side for electrical, mechanical, HVAC or fire suppression experience and does not ask for a degree, so journeyman papers, an EPA certification or a Navy nuclear background carry more weight than CompTIA does.
For interviews, prepare two or three behavioral examples mapped to Amazon’s Leadership Principles, especially Customer Obsession, Ownership and Bias for Action. Give specific metrics in your behavioral answers: a good Ownership story always has a number, a timeframe and a clear outcome.
Expect a phone screen with a recruiter, a technical phone interview, and a virtual onsite of four to five back-to-back interviews. Most applicants report three to five weeks from first contact to offer. For a deeper preparation guide, see data center technician interview questions and answers.
Negotiation strategies to improve technician pay
Amazon publishes the band on the posting, which changes how the negotiation works. You already know the floor and the ceiling before the call, so the conversation is about where inside the band you land, not what the band is.
Anchor to a specific figure inside the posted range and name the experience that justifies it. A counter of “$48 an hour” backed by four years of hands-on work beats “somewhere in the upper half.”
Ask about the sign-on payment before you push on the hourly rate. Recruiters have more room there than on base, and the sign-on is the part of the package Amazon uses to close candidates.
Check whether the facilities track has an opening at the same site before you accept the server-track band. In Sterling that single question is worth $6.73 an hour.
Compare the offer against Microsoft data center technician salary and Google data center technician salary data. A written competing offer is the strongest lever any candidate has, and Amazon does respond to them.
What this means for your career
Amazon has the widest posted band of any major operator, which cuts both ways. The floor is lower than Google’s or Equinix’s, and the ceiling on the facilities track is higher than anything else on this page.
The single highest-value decision is which track you apply to. Same building, same commute, roughly $14,000 to $24,400 a year apart in Northern Virginia.
The ladder above the technician job is short. Data Center Chief Engineer posts between $86,400 and $208,000 depending on the site and asks for two or more years of electrical or mechanical experience, which is reachable inside a first Amazon stint.
Next steps: bookmark amazon.jobs and search all four job titles, pick the track that matches your background rather than the one with the familiar name, and get one credential that fits it. CompTIA Server+ for the server side, an electrical or HVAC ticket for the facilities side.
Common FAQs about Amazon AWS data center technician salary
How much does an AWS data center technician make?
Amazon posts $27.83 to $57.50 an hour for AWS data center technicians, which is $57,900 to $119,600 a year at 40 hours. Sign-on payments and restricted stock come on top. The band depends on the market and on how senior the specific requisition was written to be.
What is the Amazon data center technician salary?
The band Amazon posts most often is $30.91 to $54.18 an hour, or $64,300 to $112,700 a year at 40 hours. That exact range was live on September 7, 2026 in North Carolina, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Pennsylvania, on requisitions 10440148, 10504946 and 10410625.
What is the data center technician salary at Amazon per hour?
Amazon’s posted hourly range runs $27.83 at the bottom to $57.50 at the top, set by the market and the seniority of the opening rather than by performance. Canton and Vicksburg, Mississippi carry the lowest band. Facilities technicians on the DCEO side post separately at $32.88 to $65.91 an hour.
How much does an AWS data center operations technician make?
An AWS data center operations technician, which Amazon posts as DCO Tech, earns $30.00 to $57.50 an hour depending on the site. Requisition 3167705 carries $30.00 to $54.00 in Manassas, Virginia. Requisition 10501020 carries $32.88 to $57.50 in Hamlet, North Carolina.
How much does a DCO Tech make at Amazon?
DCO Tech is Amazon’s own title for the server-side data center technician, and the posted range is $27.83 to $57.50 an hour across US markets plus sign-on payments and restricted stock units. DCO stands for Data Center Operations. The facilities equivalent is DCEO.
Does Amazon pay data center technicians stock?
Yes. Amazon’s technician postings state that the package includes sign-on payments and restricted stock units on top of the hourly base. Amazon does not publish the grant size, and its RSU vesting is back-loaded, so first-year total pay leans on the sign-on rather than the stock.
What is the starting pay for a data center technician at Amazon?
Starting pay is the bottom of the band for that site, so $27.83 an hour in Amazon’s lowest-cost markets and $32.88 in its highest. That is $57,900 to $68,400 a year at 40 hours. Amazon asks for two or more years of hardware and networking experience.
Do Amazon facilities technicians make more than data center technicians?
Yes, by about $6.73 an hour at the bottom of the band. In Sterling, Virginia, Amazon posts $30.91 to $54.18 for a data center technician and $37.64 to $65.91 for a data center engineering operations technician. The facilities role wants electrical and mechanical experience instead of networking.
What level is a data center technician at Amazon?
Amazon does not publish level codes on technician postings. The only levels it puts in a title are on engineer and manager roles. The technician job is widely reported as L3, but any exact L3 base figure online is crowd-sourced, not an Amazon number.
Is being an Amazon data center technician a good job?
The pay is real and the ladder is short. A technician starting at $30.91 an hour can reach the Chief Engineer band, posted between $86,400 and $208,000, with a couple of years of electrical or mechanical experience. The costs are night shifts, weekends, on-call rotations and lifting equipment.
Sources and how we collected this data
Last updated: September 7, 2026. Every pay band on this page was read directly from a live Amazon requisition on amazon.jobs on that date, and the requisition number sits beside the figure wherever one applies. Hourly figures are converted at 2,080 hours a year. Amazon publishes a low-market to high-market band on each posting rather than a single salary, and does not publish the stock grant that sits on top. No figure on this page came from Glassdoor, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Salary.com, Levels.fyi, PayScale, Comparably or Blind.
Requisitions read for this guide on September 7, 2026 cover Data Center Technician and DCO Tech roles under numbers 10440148, 10530762, 10504946, 10504983, 10504923, 10504991, 10502631, 10432986, 10433275, 10410625, 3198441, 3167700, 3167705, 3166891, 10409148 and 10501020, across Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Nevada, Oregon and Mississippi. Facilities postings are 3146851, 10471468, 10377504, 3204248, 3165351 and 3165366. Cleared ADC InfraOps postings are 10529390, 10497100, 10529108, 10504000, 10411544 and 10471584. Leadership bands come from Chief Engineer requisitions 10529006, 10405107, 10496967, 10465048, 10465512, 10474372, 10465507, 10511539 and 10522158; Controls Engineer requisitions 10469920, 3184286, 10459933, 10440389 and 3184275; Operations Manager requisitions 10471312, 10504445, 10499227, 10471317, 3195767, 10486733, 10497775, 10491480 and 10502191; and Facility Manager requisitions 10523643, 10510724, 10523642, 10506720, 10495018, 10521947, 10425336, 10482946 and 10529315.
Competitor bands in the cross-company table come from each employer’s own pay statement on its own live requisition, with the site and the read date in the last column of that table. No figure anywhere on this page came from Glassdoor, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Salary.com, Levels.fyi, PayScale, Comparably or Blind. Those sites are named on this page only to say that we did not use them.
No other page has assembled Amazon’s own posted bands for the whole data center ladder in one table, or priced what Amazon pays for a security clearance on the same job. Those two things are what the ladder table and the clearance section above are.
