As a Principal Scientist within Alexa, you are a trusted part of the technical leadership. You bring business and industry context to science and technology decisions. You set the standard for scientific excellence and make decisions that affect the way we build and integrate algorithms. You solicit differing views across the organization and are willing to change your mind as you learn more. Your artifacts are exemplary and often used as reference across organization.
You are a hands-on scientific leader. Your solutions are exemplary in terms of algorithm design, clarity, model structure, efficiency, and extensibility. You tackle intrinsically hard problems, acquiring expertise as needed. You decompose complex problems into straightforward solutions.
You amplify your impact by leading scientific reviews within your organization or at your location. You scrutinize and review experimental design, modeling, verification and other research procedures. You probe assumptions, illuminate pitfalls, and foster shared understanding. You align teams toward coherent strategies. You educate, keeping the scientific community up to date on advanced techniques, state of the art approaches, the latest technologies, and trends. You help managers guide the career growth of other scientists by mentoring and play a significant role in hiring and developing scientists and leads.
We’re looking for a passionate, talented, and inventive Principal Scientist to help build industry-leading conversational technologies that customers love. Our mission is to push the envelope in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Understanding (NLU), Machine Learning (ML), Dialog Management, Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), and Audio Signal Processing, in order to provide the best-possible experience for our customers. As a Principal Artificial Intelligence Scientist, you will work with talented peers to develop novel algorithms and modeling techniques to advance the state of the art in spoken language understanding and dialog systems. You will leverage Amazon’s heterogeneous data sources and large-scale computing resources to accelerate advances in artificial intelligence. You will mentor Senior scientists, and work in a fast paced team environment. Your work will directly impact our customers in the form of novel products and services that make use of speech and language technology.
Key job responsibilities
You will be responsible for defining key research directions, adopting or inventing new machine learning techniques, conducting rigorous experiments, publishing results, and ensuring that research is translated into practice. You will develop long-term strategies, persuade teams to adopt those strategies, propose goals and deliver on them. You will also participate in organizational planning, hiring, mentorship and leadership development. You will be technically fearless and with a passion for building scalable science and engineering solutions. You will serve as a key scientific resource in full-cycle development (conception, design, implementation, testing to documentation, delivery, and maintenance).
About the team
Alexa is the groundbreaking cloud-based intelligent agent that powers Echo and other devices designed around your voice. Our team is creating the science and technology behind Alexa. We’re working hard, having fun, and making history. Come join our team! You will have an enormous opportunity to impact the customer experience, design, architecture, and implementation of a cutting edge product used every day by people you know.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
PhD with specialization in artificial intelligence, natural language processing, machine learning, or computational cognitive science 10+ years of combined academic and research experience.
Strong publication record in top-tier journals and conferences.
Functional thought leader, sought after for key tech decisions.
Can successfully sell ideas to an executive level decision maker.
Mentors and trains the research scientist community on complex technical issues.
Experience developing software in traditional programming languages (C++, Java, etc..).
Excellent written and spoken communication skills
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
10+ years of experience building and deploying innovative machine learning solutions at scale. Expert level skills across many Machine Learning methodologies. Published research work in academic conferences or industry circles. Experience delivering complex end-to-end global ML solutions that run at very large scale. Experience working with real-world data sets and building scalable models from big data. Thinks strategically, but stays on top of tactical execution. Exhibits excellent business judgment; balances business, product, and technology very well. This technical leader for machine learning will be an independent thinker who can make convincing, information-based arguments. With a strong bias for action, this individual will work equally well with science, engineering, economics and business teams. This person will have very sound judgment and be able to recruit and groom high caliber talent.
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 $179,000/year in our lowest geographic market up to $309,400/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.