Senior Manager, Applied Science

Socket.dev; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 218,000 - 296,000; Full time

Job summary

Amazon is seeking a Senior Manager of Applied Science to build and lead the science organization across the Agentic WorkSpaces portfolio. You will hire and grow a team of applied scientists to measure and improve AI agents and human-AI teams in enterprise environments.

You will define the science agenda, identify high-leverage problems, and drive the research directions across multiple teams to ensure production-grade, reliable outcomes.

Qualifications

• PhD or Master’s in Computer Science, ML, or a related field, or equivalent applied research experience.
• 10+ years of applied science experience, including 3+ years managing and growing teams of scientists.
• Experience setting research direction and strategy across multiple teams and organizations.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead the applied science team. Hire, develop, and retain a high-caliber team of applied scientists spanning the AAWS portfolio.
• Own the science strategy across the portfolio. Direct the research agenda for measurement and improvement of agents and human-AI teams.
• Define and drive high-leverage research directions and shape the science agenda.
• Translate science into shipped product by partnering with engineering, product, and program leaders.
• Represent science in leadership and to customers across AAWS.

Skills

Leadership

Applied ML

Evaluation methodologies

Strategic planning

Cross-team collaboration

Education

PhD or Master’s in CS/ML or related field

Job description

We are seeking a Senior Manager, Applied Science to build and lead the science organization across Agentic WorkSpaces. This is a foundational leadership role spanning the full portfolio — Personal, Applications, and Core, and the agentic surfaces (WS4Builders and WorkSpaces for Agents). You will hire, grow, and lead a team of applied scientists who define how we measure and improve the performance of AI agents and human-AI teams. A core part of the role is defining the science agenda itself — identifying which problems are most worth solving and where the highest-leverage bets lie. Directions worth exploring might include Organizational Intelligence (turning institutional knowledge into agent-consumable skills), AI Agent Experience / AiAX (agent observability and autonomous remediation), and contextual, behavioral security that adapts enforcement in real time for human and agent sessions — but these are illustrative examples, not a fixed roadmap, and many other directions are possible. You and your team will define which ones we pursue. The problems your team will solve do not have established industry patterns. You will set the scientific direction and build the team that determines how AI agents and people perceive, reason about, and act reliably within computing environments at enterprise scale.

What You Will Do

Build and lead the applied science team. Hire, develop, and retain a high-caliber team of applied scientists spanning the Agentic WorkSpaces portfolio. Set the bar for scientific talent, create the growth paths, and build the culture that makes AAWS a destination for the best agent and human-AI researchers.

Own the science strategy across the portfolio. Direct the research agenda for how we measure and improve agents and human-AI teams: the benchmarks, task suites, and metrics (accuracy, cost-per-task, task completion, productivity) that turn subjective "it works" judgments into rigorous, reproducible measurement that gates what we ship.

Define and drive high-leverage research directions. Work with your team to identify the problems most worth solving and shape the science agenda. Directions worth exploring might include how agents combine deterministic tool use (MCP) with visual reasoning from computer use; Organizational Intelligence and workflow learning (learning from expert recordings, voice annotations, and SOPs); and AI Agent Experience / AiAX (detecting when agents are stuck or degrading productivity and autonomously remediating) — these are illustrative starting points, and your team will weigh them against many other possibilities.

Translate science into shipped product. Partner with engineering, product, and program leaders to move models, evaluation, and learning systems from prototype into a decade-old production service operating at massive scale, without compromising the reliability that customers depend on.

Represent science in leadership and to customers. Be the scientific voice in org-level planning and roadmap decisions across AAWS, and engage directly with enterprise customers on how agent performance, safety, and human-AI productivity are measured and earned.

Key job responsibilities

Build and lead the applied science team. Hire, develop, and retain a high-caliber team of applied scientists spanning the Agentic WorkSpaces portfolio. Set the bar for scientific talent, create the growth paths, and build the culture that makes AAWS a destination for the best agent and human-AI researchers.

Own the science strategy across the portfolio. Direct the research agenda for how we measure and improve agents and human-AI teams: the benchmarks, task suites, and metrics (accuracy, cost-per-task, task completion, productivity) that turn subjective "it works" judgments into rigorous, reproducible measurement that gates what we ship.

Define and drive high-leverage research directions. Work with your team to identify the problems most worth solving and shape the science agenda. Directions worth exploring might include how agents combine deterministic tool use (MCP) with visual reasoning from computer use; Organizational Intelligence and workflow learning (learning from expert recordings, voice annotations, and SOPs); and AI Agent Experience / AiAX (detecting when agents are stuck or degrading productivity and autonomously remediating) — these are illustrative starting points, and your team will weigh them against many other possibilities.

Translate science into shipped product. Partner with engineering, product, and program leaders to move models, evaluation, and learning systems from prototype into a decade-old production service operating at massive scale, without compromising the reliability that customers depend on.

Represent science in leadership and to customers. Be the scientific voice in org-level planning and roadmap decisions across AAWS, and engage directly with enterprise customers on how agent performance, safety, and human-AI productivity are measured and earned.

Set the long-term scientific vision and team strategy:

Define what best-in-class agent performance, evaluation, and learning look like across Agentic WorkSpaces — for computer-using agents and human-AI teams alike. Chart a multi-year research roadmap, and build the team and plan to deliver it. Secure buy-in from VP-level leadership.

Hire and grow scientific talent:

Own recruiting, calibration, development, and retention for the science team. Mentor scientists toward senior and principal scope, and raise the scientific bar across the organization.

Direct research on highly ambiguous, novel problems:

Guide the team through foundational challenges in agent perception, reasoning, evaluation, reliability, and human-AI collaboration — problems where neither the approach nor the success criteria are pre-defined.

Drive cross-organizational alignment:

Work across partner teams (AgentCore, Bedrock model teams, Identity, Security, the MCP ecosystem) and across the Applied AI Solutions product portfolio, with product and engineering leadership, to ensure scientific decisions compose into a coherent product.

Deliver measurable business impact:

Ensure your team's research translates to customer outcomes: higher task accuracy, lower cost-per-action, faster time-to-production, measurable productivity for human-AI teams, and the trust that lets enterprises scale agent workflows.

Establish scientific rigor and operational excellence:

Set the standard for experimentation, evaluation, and reproducibility, and the mechanisms that keep the science organization productive and accountable.

Advance the state of the art:

Enable and champion contributions to the external technical community through publications, patents, and open-source work that position AWS as the leader in the science of secure agent-computer interaction and human-AI teamwork.

About the team

AWS Applied AI Solutions' (AAIS) vision is every business innovating with Amazon AI teammates. Our mission is to build delightful AI solutions that improve human capabilities and business outcomes. The Agentic WorkSpaces organization within AAIS envisions a world where people, teams, and AI collaborate securely from anywhere to create unprecedented value for every organization. We build lovable products that empower every business to unlock the full potential of human-AI teamwork, driving smarter decisions, greater creativity, more value, and faster innovation with confidence.

Amazon Agentic WorkSpaces (AAWS) is building the world's most lovable, secure, and trusted always-on workspace where AI agents and humans work as partners behind enterprise-grade security. Our portfolio spans persistent desktops (Personal), application streaming (Applications), and Core, and is evolving into the governed operating environment for the hybrid workforce: humans get AI-native desktops for their role, and agents get governed desktops scoped to their task, with administrators managing both as one. This surface includes WS4Builders (an AI-native environment for builders) and WorkSpaces for Agents (W4A) — enabling AI agents to work the way humans do, with access to real applications, real interfaces, and real computing environments. Enterprises want to use AI agents for critical business workloads that touch legacy desktop applications and mainframes, yet 75% of organizations run legacy applications that lack modern APIs, and 90% of corporate data remains locked in systems never designed for agents. Agentic WorkSpaces solves this: it gives enterprises a secure, governed environment where agents and humans operate both legacy and modern applications directly, just as an employee would, without costly migrations.

Basic Qualifications

• PhD or Master's in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field, or equivalent applied research experience
• 10+ years of applied science experience, including 3+ years managing and growing teams of scientists
• Experience setting research direction and strategy across multiple teams and organizations
• Deep expertise in modern ML, including LLMs / foundation models and evaluation methodology
• Track record of delivering complex, ambiguous research initiatives from concept through production in enterprise environments

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading science teams working on AI agents, tool use, computer-use / GUI-grounded agents, or autonomous systems
• Experience building science teams from an early stage, including hiring at senior and principal levels
• Experience designing benchmarks, evaluation harnesses, and metrics for non-deterministic or agentic systems
• Experience with agent safety, grounding, guardrails, or reliability for LLM-based systems
• Familiarity with enterprise constraints: security, auditability, and compliance frameworks (NIST, SOC2, FedRAMP, HIPAA)
• A record of scientific leadership evidenced by publications, patents, or open-source contributions
• Experience influencing technical direction at VP+ level in a large technology organization

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

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, NY, New York - 240,600.00 - 325,500.00 USD annually

USA, WA, Seattle - 218,800.00 - 295,900.00 USD annually