Applied Scientist II, Sponsored Products Global Optimization

Amazon Science; New York (NY); On-site; USD 171,600 - 222,200; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) matching

RSUs/Stock options

Job summary

Amazon is seeking an Applied Scientist to pioneer agentic AI for advertisers at global scale. You will design architectures, build tools, and create systems that reason, plan, and act autonomously across advertiser workflows.

You’ll work on fine-tuning, RL, and preference optimization while ensuring safety and reliability. Collaborate with scientists, engineers, and PMs to bring innovations into production.

Qualifications

• PhD or Master’s degree with 4+ years in CS/CE/ML.
• 3+ years building models for business applications.
• Proficient coding in Java, C++, Python.
• Experience designing experiments and analyzing results.

Responsibilities

• Design and build agents to improve advertisers’ experiences globally.
• Develop advanced model and agent optimization techniques (e.g., fine-tuning, DPO/IPO).
• Create optimization models for global scale across countries.
• Develop agentic architectures integrating planning, tool use, and long-horizon reasoning.
• Collaborate with engineers and PMs to productionize scientific innovations.

Skills

Java

C++

Python

Experiment design

Reinforcement learning

Education

PhD or MS + 4+ years CS/CE/ML

Job description

Description

Global Optimization is a strategic initiative aimed at improving Amazon advertisers experience at global scale. We are looking for a passionate Applied Scientist to help pioneer the next generation of agentic AI applications for Amazon advertisers. In this role, you will design agentic architectures, develop tools and datasets, and contribute to building systems that can reason, plan, and act autonomously across complex advertiser workflows at global scale. You will work at the forefront of applied AI, developing methods for fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, and preference optimization, while helping create evaluation frameworks that ensure safety, reliability, and trust at scale.

Description

Global Optimization is a strategic initiative aimed at improving Amazon advertisers experience at global scale. We are looking for a passionate Applied Scientist to help pioneer the next generation of agentic AI applications for Amazon advertisers. In this role, you will design agentic architectures, develop tools and datasets, and contribute to building systems that can reason, plan, and act autonomously across complex advertiser workflows at global scale. You will work at the forefront of applied AI, developing methods for fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, and preference optimization, while helping create evaluation frameworks that ensure safety, reliability, and trust at scale. You will work backwards from the needs of advertisers—delivering customer-facing products that directly help them create, optimize, and grow their campaigns. Beyond building models, you will advance the agent ecosystem by experimenting with and applying core primitives such as tool orchestration, multi-step reasoning, and adaptive preference-driven behavior. This role requires working independently on ambiguous technical problems, collaborating closely with scientists, engineers, and product managers to bring innovative solutions into production.

Key job responsibilities

• Design and build agents that improve advertisers experiences globally
• Design and implement advanced model and agent optimization techniques, including supervised fine-tuning, instruction tuning and preference optimization (e.g., DPO/IPO).
• Design and implement optimization models that work at global scale taking into account nuances of multiple countries
• Innovate new science models to help advertisers scale their campaigns globally
• Curate datasets and tools for MCP.
• Build evaluation pipelines for agent workflows, including automated benchmarks, multi-step reasoning tests, and safety guardrails.
• Develop agentic architectures (e.g., CoT, ToT, ReAct) that integrate planning, tool use, and long-horizon reasoning.
• Prototype and iterate on multi-agent orchestration frameworks and workflows.
• Collaborate with peers across engineering and product to bring scientific innovations into production.
• Stay current with the latest research in LLMs, RL, and agent-based AI, optimization and translate findings into practical applications.

About The Team

The Sponsored Products and Brands team at Amazon Ads is re-imagining the advertising landscape through the latest generative AI technologies, revolutionizing how millions of customers discover products and engage with brands across Amazon.com and beyond. We are at the forefront of re-inventing advertising experiences, bridging human creativity with artificial intelligence to transform every aspect of the advertising lifecycle from ad creation and optimization to performance analysis and customer insights. We are a passionate group of innovators dedicated to developing responsible and intelligent AI technologies that balance the needs of advertisers, enhance the shopping experience, and strengthen the marketplace. If you're energized by solving complex challenges and pushing the boundaries of what's possible with AI, join us in shaping the future of advertising. The Global Optimization team within Sponsored Products and Brands is focused on guiding and supporting 1.6MM advertisers to meet their advertising needs of creating and managing ad campaigns at global scale. At this scale, the complexity of diverse advertiser goals, campaign types, and market dynamics creates both a massive technical challenge and a transformative opportunity: even small improvements in guidance systems can have outsized impact on advertiser success and Amazon’s retail ecosystem. Our work is grounded in state-of-the-art agent architectures, tool integration, reasoning frameworks, and model customization approaches (including tuning, MCP, and preference optimization), ensuring our systems are both scalable and adaptive.

Basic Qualifications

• PhD, or Master's degree and 4+ years of CS, CE, ML or related field experience
• 3+ years of building models for business application experience
• Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
• Experience in designing experiments and statistical analysis of results

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in professional software development
• Experience in state-of-the-art deep learning models architecture design and deep learning training and optimization and model pruning
• Experience with LLMs, AI Agents, MCPs, Chain of Thought reasoning

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.

The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.

USA, CA, Palo Alto - 171,600.00 - 222,200.00 USD annually