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About This Role
DESCRIPTION
Are you passionate about building machine learning systems that protect one the world's largest cloud platform? The AWS Payments & Fraud Prevention (P&FP) Science team is looking for a driven Applied Scientist to help safeguard AWS and its millions of customers from evolving fraud threats.
In this role, you will design, build, and deploy end-to-end machine learning models that detect and prevent fraudulent activity. You will work with massive, real-world datasets across the AWS payments, signup and usage ecosystem, develop new detection strategies, and take models from concept to production. You will also apply Generative AI (GenAI) techniques to enhance fraud signal discovery and strengthen our detection capabilities.
At AWS, we process billions of transactions every day for hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide. Fraud patterns shift constantly and our defenses must stay ahead. If you enjoy owning problems end-to-end, shipping models that make real-time decisions at scale, and making a direct impact on customer trust and financial protection, we invite you to join us and help shape the future of fraud prevention at AWS.
Key job responsibilities
Design, build, and deploy end-to-end machine learning models and rules to detect, prevent, and mitigate fraudulent activities across the AWS payment and usage ecosystem.
Source, extract, and analyze large-scale behavioral, transactional, and historical datasets to uncover fraud patterns and emerging threats.
Apply hands-on expertise in statistical modeling, traditional machine learning, and analytics to identify and isolate issues across the fraud landscape.
Explore and apply GenAI techniques, including large language models (LLMs) and synthetic data generation, to enhance fraud detection capabilities.
Own the full model lifecycle — from data extraction and feature engineering through evaluation, productionalization, and deployment.
Continuously monitor model and rule performance and improve robustness against adversarial behaviors and evolving fraud tactics.
Experiment, prototype, and iterate on new detection strategies, algorithms, and evaluation metrics with a focus on rapid time-to-production.
Collaborate closely with engineering, product, and operations teams to translate business needs into scalable technical solutions.
Communicate findings and technical insights clearly and effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders at all levels.
Contribute to the broader fraud prevention strategy, driving innovation and best practices across the organization.
A day in the life
You will have the opportunity to enhance our existing models and develop new ones that have a direct impact on the business from reducing financial losses to protecting customer accounts in real time. You will own your models end-to-end, from sourcing data and building features through evaluation and productionalization, and you will be expected to move quickly as fraud threats evolve.
As part of this role, you will also support core fraud operations reviewing model outputs, tuning detection thresholds, and ensuring our mechanisms are performing as expected in production. This operational closeness to the data and to real fraud cases is what gives our scientists a unique edge: you will develop a deep, practical understanding of how fraud actually works, which directly sharpens the models and strategies you build. It is this combination of science and operational insight that makes our team's work so impactful.
Your role will also allow you to leverage your customer-obsession skills by thoughtfully considering the user experience and ensuring it is not adversely affected by the mechanisms you design. You will explore new techniques, including Generative AI, to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated adversaries.
About the team
Our team plays a crucial role in safeguarding secure and profitable business operations. Our mission is to position AWS as the most cost-effective and user-friendly cloud service provider by protecting legitimate customer experiences from the financial, operational, and reputational impacts of fraudulent activities. We develop services that prevent, detect, contain, and mitigate the actions of fraudulent and malicious users. As part of an analytics-driven team, you will leverage large-scale data to inform business decisions, respond to fraud, and automate decision-making at scale.
Our team is dedicated to supporting new members. We have a broad mix of experience levels and tenures, and we’re building an environment that celebrates knowledge-sharing and mentorship. Our senior members enjoy one-on-one mentoring and thorough, but kind, code reviews. We care about your career growth and strive to assign projects that help our team members develop your engineering expertise so you feel empowered to take on more complex tasks in the future.
Diverse Experiences
AWS values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.
About AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped innovating — that’s why customers from the most successful startups to Global 500 companies trust our robust suite of products and services to power their businesses.
Inclusive Team Culture
Here at AWS, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Our employee-led affinity groups foster a culture of inclusion that empower us to be proud of our differences. Ongoing events and learning experiences, including our Conversations on Race and Ethnicity (CORE) and AmazeCon (gender diversity) conferences, inspire us to never stop embracing our uniqueness.
Work/Life Balance
We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why we strive for flexibility as part of our working culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve in the cloud.
Mentorship & Career Growth
We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, mentorship and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.
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
- 5+ years of designing experiments and statistical analysis of results experience
- Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
- 3+ years of practical work applying ML to solve complex problems for large-scale applications experience
- Experience with R, Python, Weka, SAS, Matlab or other statistical/machine learning software
- Experience in scripting for automation (e.g. Python) and advanced SQL skills.
- Experience working in a large team or fast-paced corporate environment
- PhD or equivalent Master's degree in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, Operations Research or in another highly quantitative field
- Ability to develop and deploy (in partnership with engineers) Machine Learning models that power specific applications
- Skilled in various Statistical and traditional Machine Learning methods such as tree-based models
- Superior verbal and written communication and presentation skills, ability to convey rigorous mathematical concepts and considerations to non-experts
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Experience using Unix/Linux
- Experience in professional software development
- Experience with neural deep learning methods and machine learning
- Knowledge of AWS Infrastructure
- Knowledge of AWS services including compute, storage, networking, security, databases, machine learning, and serverless technologies
- 4+ years of applied ML experience in a quantitative filed
- Predictive Analytics
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 - 172,400.00 - 223,400.00 USD annually
Salary Context
This $172K-$223K range is above the median for Research Scientist roles in our dataset (median: $197K across 82 roles with salary data).
Role Details
About This Role
Research Scientists push the boundaries of what AI can do. They design experiments, develop novel architectures, publish papers, and translate research breakthroughs into production capabilities. This is where the fundamental advances happen, from attention mechanisms to diffusion models to reasoning chains.
The work is intellectually demanding and often ambiguous. You might spend months on an approach that doesn't pan out. The best research scientists combine deep mathematical intuition with engineering pragmatism. They know when to go deep on theory and when to run experiments. They read papers voraciously and can spot incremental contributions from genuine breakthroughs.
Across the 9,653 AI roles we're tracking, Research Scientist positions make up 2% of the market. At Amazon Web Services, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Research Scientist roles are concentrated at major AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR) and well-funded AI startups. The competition is intense. PhD is effectively required for most positions, and publication track record matters. Compensation is among the highest in AI, reflecting both the scarcity of talent and the strategic importance of research breakthroughs.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week includes: reading and discussing recent papers with your team, designing and running experiments on multi-GPU clusters, analyzing results and iterating on hypotheses, writing up findings for internal review or publication, and collaborating with engineering teams to productionize promising results. The ratio of thinking to coding is higher than in engineering roles.
Research Scientist roles are concentrated at major AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR) and well-funded AI startups. The competition is intense. PhD is effectively required for most positions, and publication track record matters. Compensation is among the highest in AI, reflecting both the scarcity of talent and the strategic importance of research breakthroughs.
Skills Required
PhD strongly preferred for most roles. Deep expertise in a specific area (NLP, computer vision, reinforcement learning, multimodal) is expected. PyTorch is the standard. Publication track record matters. Strong mathematical foundations in linear algebra, probability, optimization, and information theory are assumed.
Beyond the fundamentals, companies value experience with large-scale distributed training, novel architecture design, and the ability to bridge theory and practice. Understanding of current frontier topics (reasoning, multimodal, long-context, alignment) is essential. Code quality matters more than many researchers expect. Labs want researchers who can implement their ideas cleanly.
Strong research postings specify the research area, mention the team you'd join, and describe the problems they're working on. They often list recent publications from the team. Vague 'AI research' postings without specifics usually mean the company wants to sound impressive but doesn't have a real research agenda.
Compensation Benchmarks
Research Scientist roles pay a median of $222,200 based on 708 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $193,200. This role's midpoint ($197K) sits 11% below the category median. Disclosed range: $172K to $223K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($253,100) and Research Engineer ($252,000). By seniority level: Entry: $110,408; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $228,700; Director: $272,275; VP: $235,000.
Amazon Web Services AI Hiring
Amazon Web Services has 79 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, AI Product Manager, Data Scientist, Research Engineer. Positions span New York, NY, US, Bellevue, WA, US, Atlanta, GA, US. Compensation range: $97K - $299K.
Location Context
AI roles in New York pay a median of $221,000 across 2,878 tracked positions. That's 4% above the national median.
Career Path
Common paths into Research Scientist roles include PhD Student, Research Engineer, Postdoc.
From here, career progression typically leads toward Research Lead, Distinguished Scientist, VP of Research.
The PhD is the entry point for most paths. Choose your advisor and research area carefully since they'll define your first industry position. Publish consistently, contribute to open-source projects in your area, and build relationships at conferences. Industry research offers better compensation and compute resources than academia, but the pressure to show product impact is real.
What to Expect in Interviews
Research interviews are multi-stage: a research talk (present your best paper), technical deep-dives on your methodology, and often a 'research proposal' exercise where you design an experiment to test a hypothesis. Coding rounds test implementation ability alongside theoretical knowledge. Be prepared to implement a paper from scratch and discuss the design choices the authors made. Strong candidates can critique papers constructively and identify gaps in experimental methodology.
When evaluating opportunities: Strong research postings specify the research area, mention the team you'd join, and describe the problems they're working on. They often list recent publications from the team. Vague 'AI research' postings without specifics usually mean the company wants to sound impressive but doesn't have a real research agenda.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 9,653 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 193 entry-level, 4,500 mid-level, 3,455 senior, and 1,505 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (568 positions). The remaining 9,010 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($253,100 median, 57 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 419 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 51 roles).
Research Scientist roles are concentrated at major AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR) and well-funded AI startups. The competition is intense. PhD is effectively required for most positions, and publication track record matters. Compensation is among the highest in AI, reflecting both the scarcity of talent and the strategic importance of research breakthroughs.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 9,653 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (7,301), Data Scientist (441), AI Software Engineer (438). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (193) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,500) and senior (3,455) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 1,505 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (568 positions), with 9,010 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $213,400. Top-quartile roles start at $264,230, and the 90th percentile reaches $319,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $253,100 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $141,440. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,605 postings), Aws (916 postings), Azure (724 postings), Rag (634 postings), Gcp (522 postings), Pytorch (495 postings), Kubernetes (384 postings), Claude (383 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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