Before Serdar joined Amazon, he was a professor at Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey and a visiting researcher at Microsoft Research. He worked in the following areas before joining Amazon:

- Verification, programming languages, and systems: Verifiable systems programming, static proof and dynamic verification tools for multi-threaded and distributed software, multi-processor hardware.

- Design automation tools for hardware and software systems: Synthesis, verification, performance analysis and optimization.

Now, Serdar is working on tools and techniques for formally verifying the security of Amazon’s systems. His team builds and applies tools which facilitate the security of the cloud and in the cloud, i.e., for software implementing AWS, and for software built on top of AWS. "I think of Amazon Web Services as the enabling computing platform for the world. Putting my formal verification experience into use in making this global platform secure is important and rewarding work."

"Not only am I working on very interesting problems, but I am always learning at Amazon. There are projects at Amazon directly tackling most of the computer science problems that I find interesting. There is a huge variety of activity. First-hand experience of interesting computing challenges is what makes Amazon a very stimulating place to work."

Serdar works as a domain specialist on his team, using formal verification technology for security applications ranging from program analysis for application security to proofs of cryptographic protocols. He also has a company-wide role as a participant in discussions with and consultant for other teams whenever his experience can be helpful.

"Principal engineers work as domain specialist on their team and as participants in a company-wide dialogue. This dual role makes for a stimulating work environment and fosters a lot of growth."