Senior Applied Scientist, Delivery Foundation Model

Amazon; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

RSUs

401(k) matching

Paid time off

Job summary

Amazon is seeking a Senior Applied Scientist for the Delivery Foundation Model team. You will lead research and hands-on development to create foundation models that enable billions of deliveries worldwide, combining leadership with practical implementation.

You will work on multimodal data, scalable training/inference systems, and production-ready solutions, mentoring colleagues while delivering impactful results for Amazon’s Last Mile network.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent track record with strong research publications.
• 5+ years building ML models or algorithms for business applications.
• Proficiency with data, SQL, Spark; strong coding in Python/C++.

Responsibilities

• Design novel deep learning architectures across modalities (image, video, geospatial).
• Train and deploy foundation models at scale leveraging large datasets and compute resources.
• Collaborate with teams to adapt models for Last Mile delivery use cases and improve efficiency.
• Set technical direction for research initiatives and ensure robust production performance.
• Mentor scientists and contribute hands-on research and implementation.
• Guide researchers in solving complex challenges from trajectory planning to multi-task learning.

Skills

PhD requirement or MS with 10+ years

Machine learning

Python

C++

SQL

Apache Spark

Publications in top venues

Education

PhD in engineering or CS

Master’s with 10+ years experience

Tools

PyTorch / TensorFlow

Job description

Senior Applied Scientist, Delivery Foundation Model

Job ID: 10467950 | Amazon.com Services LLC

Join the Delivery Foundation Model team to pioneer the next frontier of logistics through AI and foundation models. We are seeking an exceptional Senior Applied Scientist to help develop innovative foundation models that enable delivery of billions of packages worldwide. In this role, you’ll combine technical leadership with hands-on research to deliver robust solutions for dynamic real-world environments, leveraging Amazon’s data and computational resources.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement novel deep learning architectures combining multiple modalities, including image, video, and geospatial data.
• Train and deploy foundation models at scale using vast Amazon data, optimizing hardware and software stacks.
• Collaborate with science and engineering teams to build adaptations that power use cases across Amazon Last Mile deliveries, improving driver and customer experiences and network efficiency.
• Set technical direction for specific research initiatives and ensure robust production performance.
• Mentor fellow scientists while contributing significantly to hands-on technical work.
• Develop and implement novel foundation model architectures; work with data and our training/evaluation infrastructure.
• Guide and support scientists in solving complex challenges, from trajectory planning to multi-task learning; support engineers in building scalable infrastructure for training, evaluation, and inference.
• Lead focused technical initiatives from concept through deployment, ensuring integration with production systems; drive technical discussions with the team and stakeholders.
• Conduct experiments, prototype ideas, and contribute to model performance analysis.

About the team

The Delivery Foundation Model team combines ambitious research with real-world impact. Our foundation models enable generative reasoning for Amazon’s global Last Mile delivery network. We leverage extensive datasets and infrastructure to deploy state-of-the-art models that improve safety, quality, and efficiency of deliveries. Our work spans from multimodal data handling to end-to-end tooling for data preparation, training, evaluation, inference, and performance analysis.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications

• PhD in engineering, technology, computer science, machine learning, robotics, operations research, statistics, mathematics, or equivalent quantitative field, or Master’s degree with 10+ years of research/industry experience.
• 5+ years of building machine learning models or developing algorithms for business applications.
• Proficiency with data, SQL, and Spark; strong coding skills in Python, C++, or similar languages.
• Strong publication record at top-tier conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV, RSS, CoRL) or demonstrated industry ML innovation and mentoring experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building foundation models for industry or research.
• Experience designing multi-modal model architectures.
• Experience building models for motion prediction (e.g., autonomous driving).
• Track record of successful production ML deployments.
• Experience with large-scale distributed environments for ML training and inference.
• History of impactful first-author publications at major conferences.

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 include working safely, adhering to standards, effective communication, and following all applicable laws and policies. Criminal history may affect eligibility. We will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records in accordance with the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance.

Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results. If you need a workplace accommodation during the application or hiring 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, contact your Recruiting Partner.

Benefits and compensation

The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your total compensation includes sign-on payments and RSUs. Final compensation is based on experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance, 401(k) matching, paid time off, parental leave, and other programs. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.