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About This Role
DESCRIPTION
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What happens when you combine startup speed with Amazon\-scale innovation and impact? You get this team. Amazon Enterprise Security Products is a newly launched group building intelligent, cloud\-agnostic security tools using AI\-first development practices. Here, you don't just publish papers about what's possible, you ship it to production and watch it protect real customers. This role offers a rare opportunity to define the scientific direction of a greenfield security portfolio, where agentic AI, foundation models, and novel ML approaches aren't future bets, they're what we're building right now. It's a chance to shape the future of security tooling with a small, fast team that researches like a lab and deploys like Amazon.
Key job responsibilities
- Set the science vision: Define a multi\-year science roadmap for AI\-powered security products. Identify where foundation models, agentic systems, and emerging ML techniques can fundamentally change how we detect, prevent, and respond to threats protecting Amazon Business customers.
- Invent and build, end to end: Design and personally develop novel ML solutions — from agentic architectures and RAG systems to anomaly detection and behavior modeling. You won't hand off prototypes; you'll partner with engineers and PMs to ship them into production.
- Tackle scientifically ambiguous problems: Translate messy, open\-ended security challenges into well\-defined scientific problems. Own the critical novelty in our systems and provide system\-wide design guidance.
- Experiment with rigor and speed: Design and run offline and online experiments to validate ideas quickly. Make data\-driven calls on what ships, what iterates, and what gets killed.
- Push the frontier: Stay ahead of advancements in foundation models, agentic AI, and applied ML. Evaluate emerging capabilities and make strategic build\-vs\-buy decisions. Publish your work at top conferences when it advances the field.
- Influence across the org: Partner with security researchers, engineers, product managers, and UX designers to turn customer needs into technical strategy. Communicate complex scientific ideas clearly to both technical and executive audiences.
- Raise the bar: Mentor applied scientists and engineers, establish scientific review practices, and set the standard for how this team does science. This is a ground\-floor opportunity to shape the culture.
- Innovate with urgency: Prototype rapidly, validate with customers, and iterate. Bring a builder\-scientist mindset to an environment where the best idea wins.
A day in the life
You lead from the front on a startup\-paced, AI\-first development team. One moment you're whiteboarding a new agentic detection architecture with principal engineers, the next you're deep in a notebook training a model or analyzing experiment results. You author science vision docs, drive design reviews, and unblock your team when the problem space gets murky. You don't just track the latest in AI, you decide what's worth betting on and lead the team in making those bets real. Every day you're advancing the science and advancing the product.
About the team
Amazon Enterprise Security Products is built by builders who tackle challenges others might consider too ambitious. We're a small team where there are no layers between you and the decision, no waiting quarters to see your work reach customers. Every team member brings an owner's mentality. If there's a problem worth solving, we solve it. No mission is beyond reach, no detail beneath our attention. We move fast, we ship fast, and we learn from what we ship. This is where builders who want to make the impossible routine come to do their best work.
Diverse Experiences
Amazon Security 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.
Why Amazon Security?
At Amazon, security is central to maintaining customer trust and delivering delightful customer experiences. Our organization is responsible for creating and maintaining a high bar for security across all of Amazon’s products and services. We offer talented security professionals the chance to accelerate their careers with opportunities to build experience in a wide variety of areas including cloud, devices, retail, entertainment, healthcare, operations, and physical stores.
Inclusive Team Culture
In Amazon Security, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Ongoing DEI events and learning experiences inspire us to continue learning and to embrace our uniqueness. Addressing the toughest security challenges requires that we seek out and celebrate a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and voices.
Training \& 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, training, and other career\-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better\-rounded professional.
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 flexible work hours and arrangements are part of our culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve.BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
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- 3\+ years of building machine learning models for business application experience
- PhD, or Master's degree and 6\+ years of applied research experience
- Experience programming in Java, C\+\+, Python or related language
- Experience with neural deep learning methods and machine learning
- Experience communicating complex ideas to technical and non\-technical audiences
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
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- Experience with modeling tools such as R, scikit\-learn, Spark MLLib, MxNet, Tensorflow, numpy, scipy etc.
- Experience with large scale distributed systems such as Hadoop, Spark etc.
- Experience with training and deploying machine learning systems to solve large\-scale optimizations, or experience with software development lifecycle
- Experience with vLLM, SGLang, TensorRT or similar platforms in production environments, or experience designing or architecting (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems
- Experience with any combination of the following: application security frameworks, identity and access controls, incident response, mobile security, cloud computing and security, AI security, threat intelligence, and penetration testing
- Experience leading, mentoring and growing teams of scientists (teams of five or more scientists)
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, TX, Austin \- 167,100\.00 \- 226,100\.00 USD annually
Salary Context
This $167K-$226K range is above the median for Research Scientist roles in our dataset (median: $183K across 109 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 3,823 AI roles we're tracking, Research Scientist positions make up 3% of the market. At Amazon.com, 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 $223,400 based on 280 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($196K) sits 12% below the category median. Disclosed range: $167K to $226K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $200,100. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,500. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Engineering Manager ($275,000) and AI Safety ($274,200). By seniority level: Entry: $97,880; Mid: $165,000; Senior: $227,400; Director: $247,800; VP: $250,000.
Amazon.com AI Hiring
Amazon.com has 102 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across Research Scientist, AI/ML Engineer, AI Product Manager, Data Scientist. Positions span New York, NY, US, Palo Alto, CA, US, Bellevue, WA, US. Compensation range: $129K - $300K.
Location Context
AI roles in Austin pay a median of $215,300 across 523 tracked positions. That's 8% 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 3,823 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 112 entry-level, 1,798 mid-level, 1,516 senior, and 397 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 15% of the market (590 positions). The remaining 3,217 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $200,100. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,500. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. Highest-paying categories: AI Engineering Manager ($275,000 median, 41 roles); AI Safety ($274,200 median, 55 roles); Research Engineer ($260,000 median, 434 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 3,823 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,629), Data Scientist (322), AI Software Engineer (279). 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 (112) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,798) and senior (1,516) 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 397 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 15% of all AI roles (590 positions), with 3,217 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 $200,100. Top-quartile roles start at $253,500, and the 90th percentile reaches $307,500. 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 Engineering Manager roles lead at $275,000 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $140,000. 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 (1,979 postings), Aws (1,190 postings), Azure (899 postings), Rag (839 postings), Gcp (726 postings), Pytorch (595 postings), Prompt Engineering (595 postings), Claude (540 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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