Principal Applied Scientist - GenAI, Amazon Sponsored Products

Senior • On-site

$179,000 - $309,400/yr

Seattle, WA , +2

DESCRIPTION

Are you interested in computational advertising and sponsored recommendations? Do you thrive in a fast-paced organization with significant impact on hundreds of millions of customers? Do you love to innovate at the intersection of customer experience, deep learning, and high-scale machine learning systems? If so, Amazon Sponsored Products could be the right place for you.

The Sponsored Products (SP) Off-Search team is focused on building delightful ad experiences across various surfaces on Amazon—such as product detail pages, the homepage, and store-in-store pages—to drive monetization. Our vision is to deliver highly personalized, context-aware advertising that adapts to individual shopper preferences, scales across diverse page types, remains relevant to seasonal and event-driven moments, and integrates seamlessly with organic recommendations such as new arrivals, basket-building content, and fast-delivery options. To execute this vision, we work in close partnership with Stores stakeholders to lead the expansion and growth of SP across Amazon-owned and -operated pages beyond Search. We operate full stack—from backend ads-retail edge services, ads retrieval, and ad auctions to shopper-facing experiences—all designed to deliver meaningful value.

We are seeking a Principal Applied Scientist to lead development in Generative AI (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) to revolutionize our end-to-end advertising flow. This is a rare opportunity to redefine how ads are retrieved, allocated, and experienced—elevating them into personalized, contextually aware, and inspiring components of the customer journey. You will have the opportunity to fundamentally transform areas such as ad retrieval, ad allocation, whole-page relevance, and differentiated recommendations through the lens of GenAI. By building novel generative models grounded in both Amazon’s rich data and the world’s collective knowledge, your work will shape how customers engage with ads, discover products, and make purchasing decisions. If you are passionate about applying frontier AI to real-world problems with massive scale and impact, this is your opportunity to define the next chapter of advertising science.

Key job responsibilities
This role will be pivotal in rethinking how ads contribute to a personalized, relevant, and inspirational shopping experience, with the customer value proposition at the forefront. Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

* Lead the design and development of GenAI-powered solutions to transform ad retrieval, auctions, whole-page relevance, and bespoke shopping experiences.
* Collaborate cross-functionally with scientists, engineers, and product leaders to bring scalable, production-ready GenAI solutions to life.
* Stay abreast of industry trends in GenAI, LLMs, and related disciplines, bringing fresh and innovative concepts, ideas, and prototypes to the organization.
* Champion a long-term scientific vision for advertising that aligns with customer value, business strategy, and the technological frontier.
* Play a critical role in enhancing the team’s scientific and technical rigor by identifying and implementing best-in-class algorithms, methodologies, and infrastructure that enable rapid experimentation and scaling.
* Mentor and grow junior scientists and engineers, cultivating a high-performing, collaborative, and intellectually curious team.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

* Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Statistics, or a related quantitative discipline.
* Experience in building scalable AI/ML solutions for 5+ years, including at least 3 years leading large, complex projects at scale.
* Strong foundation in machine learning, deep learning, probabilistic modeling, and/or optimization.
* Experience developing and deploying models in real-world production environments.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

* Proven expertise in Generative AI, foundation models, LLMs, and/or fine-tuning and customization for downstream tasks.
* Hands-on experience in ads ranking, retrieval, recommendation systems, search, or personalization at web scale.
* Deep understanding of multi-modal modeling, few-shot learning, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF).
* Experience with online experimentation, A/B testing frameworks, and metrics design for advertising or e-commerce.
* Demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical topics clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
* Experience in computational advertising, including familiarity with auction theory, ad economics, and advertiser performance metrics.

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

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 inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.

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.

Amazon

Amazon.com, Inc. founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in the cozy confines of his Seattle garage, Amazon.com, Inc. quickly evolved from a humble online bookstore to a colossal e-commerce powerhouse. Today, it offers an extensive range of products from DVDs and electronics to furniture and groceries. With a global footprint that spans continents—from Canada and the UK to Japan and Brazil—Amazon's presence is truly international. The company has not only diversified into various domains, including acquiring Twitch in 2014 and venturing into the film industry in 2015, but also introduced initiatives like the brand registry program to safeguard intellectual property. Despite the hurdles of labor relations and competitive practices, Amazon remains a dominant force in the global e-commerce landscape.