Amazon's Search Science and AI team creates ML algorithms that connect customers around the world with products that delight them. We harness cutting-edge ML at Amazon's scale to make the customer experience easier and smoother. Our impact is large. For example, if your innovations save even 1 minute per customer per year, then for every 100 million customers, you save approximately 190 years of human effort.

Key job responsibilities
You will build search ranking systems that work for thousands of product types, billions of queries, and hundreds of millions of customers spread around the world. As an Applied Scientist you will find the next set of big improvements to ranking, leverage large datasets to understand the complexities of customer behavior, and get your hands dirty by building ML models that work at Amazon scale. In addition to typical topics in ranking, we are particularly interested in exploration techniques and reinforcement learning.

A day in the life
Our primary focus is improving search ranking systems. On a day-to-day this means building ML models, analyzing data from your recent A/B tests, and guiding teams on best practices. You will also find yourself in meetings with business and tech leaders at Amazon communicating your next big initiative.

About the team
We are a team consisting of ML scientists and software engineers. Our interests and activities span machine learning for better ranking, statistics for better decision making, and infrastructure to make it all happen at scale and efficiently.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

- 3+ years of building models for business application experience
- PhD, or Master's degree and 4+ years of CS, CE, ML or related field experience
- Experience in patents or publications at top-tier peer-reviewed conferences or journals
- Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
- Experience in any of the following areas: algorithms and data structures, parsing, numerical optimization, data mining, parallel and distributed computing, high-performance computing

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

- Experience using Unix/Linux
- Experience in professional software development

Amazon is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status. For individuals with disabilities who would like to request an accommodation, please visit https://www.amazon.jobs/en/disability/us.

Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several US geographic markets. The base pay for this position ranges from $136,000/year in our lowest geographic market up to $222,200/year in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on a number of factors including market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Amazon is a total compensation company. Dependent on the position offered, equity, sign-on payments, and other forms of compensation may be provided as part of a total compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. For more information, please visit https://www.aboutamazon.com/workplace/employee-benefits. This position will remain posted until filled. Applicants should apply via our internal or external career site.