Principal Research Scientist, Fullfilment By Amazon

Job ID: 2598495 | Amazon.com Services LLC

The Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Supply Chain by Amazon (SCA) enable third-party sellers to use Amazon’s world-class science and logistics infrastructure to supply and fulfill customers world-wide with unprecedented fast delivery promise to customer. In doing so, sellers spend more time building great products, delight customers and grow their business. The FBA team is looking for a passionate, curious, and creative Principal Research Scientist with expertise in operations research, machine learning or statistics, along with a proven record of solving business problems through scalable modeling and analytical skills. As a lead research scientist in the team, you will be responsible for designing and implementing cutting edge optimization and ML models, building automated inventory, logistics and revenue management systems while collaborating with business and software teams to solve key challenges facing the worldwide FBA business. Such challenges include 1) designing end-to-end supply and demand management systems, ranging from capacity, inventory, and workforce management systems, 2) developing and improving optimization and ML models to help FBA sellers grow their business, 3) ensuring that worldwide Amazon customers have access to the largest selection of products through FBA sellers, and 4) driving out costs across end-to-end FBA supply chain. Unlike many companies who buy existing off-the-shelf planning systems, we design and build systems to suit Amazon’s particular needs. Our team members are on the forefront of supply chain thought leadership by working on some of the most difficult problems in the industry with some of the best product managers, research scientists, statisticians, economists and software developers in the business. We value individuals who exhibit deep technical proficiency, a desire for learning new areas, and a track record of delivering tangible results while fostering personal growth, team development, and career advancement.
A day in the life
In this pivotal role, you will be a technical leader in operations research or machine learning, with significant scope, impact, and visibility. Your solutions have the potential to drive billions of dollars in impact for Amazon's third-party seller business. As a senior scientist on the team, you will engage in every facet of the process—from idea generation, business analysis and scientific research to development and deployment of advanced models—granting you a profound sense of ownership. From day one, you will collaborate with experienced scientists, engineers, and product managers who are passionate about their work. Moreover, you will collaborate with Amazon's broader decision and research science community, enriching your perspective and mentoring fellow engineers and scientists. The successful candidate will have the strong expertise in applying operations research methodologies to address a wide variety of supply chain problems with millions of unique products involving hundreds of thousands of Selling Partners and tens of millions of customers worldwide. You will strive for simplicity, demonstrate judgment backed by mathematical rigor, as you continually seek opportunities to innovate, build, and deliver. Entrepreneurial spirit, adaptability to diverse roles, and agility in a fast-paced, high-energy, highly collaborative environment are essential.
About the team
Sellers play a vital role in Amazon’s ecosystem, integral to our mission of offering the Earth’s largest selection and lowest prices. FBA is a service that enables third-party sellers to outsource order fulfillment to Amazon, and leverage Amazon’s world-class facilities to provide customers Prime delivery promise. By partnering with Amazon, sellers benefit from powerful, cost-effective solutions that leverage our scale and technology, gain access to Prime members worldwide, increase their sales, and have more time to continue inventing amazing products for customers. With commitment to taking on even more of the supply chain and operational complexities on behalf of our selling partners, Amazon introduced Supply Chain by Amazon (SCA), an end-to-end, fully automated suite of supply chain services. This comprehensive solution empowers sellers to quickly and reliably transport products from manufacturing sites to customers worldwide. Amazon Warehousing and Distribution is a pivotal service in SCA, that provides best-in-class bulk storage and distribution services to sellers, ensuring they remain well-stocked across all their sale and fulfillment channels while reducing the total supply chain costs. The FBA team is the core group in charge of fulfillment, inventory management, pricing, and a diverse range of operational recommendation services for sellers, as well as building the internal resource management systems. We work to learn seller behavior, understand seller experience, build automated assistants to sellers, recommend right actions to sellers, design seller policies and incentives, and develop science products and services that empower third-party sellers to grow their businesses. To do so, we build and innovate science solutions at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, economics, operations research, and data analytics. We work full-stack, from foundational backend systems to future-forward user interfaces. Our culture is centered on rapid prototyping, rigorous experimentation, and data-driven decision-making.
We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations:
Bellevue, WA, USA

- Ph.D. in Operations Research, Machine Learning, Statistics, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Operations Management, Industrial Engineering, Economics or a related field.
- 7+ years of experience in solving complex problems in the area of operations research, statistics or machine learning, as well as in developing strategies for large-scale supply chain, transportation and logistic networks.
- Ability to perform quantitative, economic, and numerical analyses of large-scale systems under uncertainty using statistical and optimization tools such as Python, R and XPRESS to determine solution strategies for complex decision-making problems.
- Fluency in using mathematical optimization or machine learning, including algorithm design, continuous and discrete optimization, stochastic analysis, supervised and unsupervised machine learning methods, and deep learning, to develop solution methods to be used by in-house decision support tools and software.
- Proficiency working with Python, SQL and/or C/C++.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills while addressing both technical and business people, ability to speak at a level appropriate for the audience, and skills to present business cases, and document models, analyses, and results to influence important decisions.

- 10+ years of hands-on experience in using models to solve complex real-world business problems.
- Experience in supply chains, transportation and logistics models.
- Significant peer-reviewed scientific contributions in premier journals and conferences.
- Programming experience using at least one modern programming language such as Python, Java, or C++.
- Proficiency in development, validation and implementation optimization or machine learning models for large-scale applications.
- Superior verbal and written communication and presentation skills, ability to convey rigorous mathematical concepts and considerations to non-experts.
- Proven ability to work effectively in a cross-functional team.
Amazon is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status. For individuals with disabilities who would like to request an accommodation, please visit compensation reflects the cost of labor across several US geographic markets. The base pay for this position ranges from $170,500/year in our lowest geographic market up to $294,700/year in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on a number of factors including market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Amazon is a total compensation company. Dependent on the position offered, equity, sign-on payments, and other forms of compensation may be provided as part of a total compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. For more information, please visit This position will remain posted until filled. Applicants should apply via our internal or external career site.

Posted: June 17, 2024 (Updated about 2 hours ago)

Posted: May 14, 2024 (Updated about 5 hours ago)

Posted: June 13, 2024 (Updated about 21 hours ago)

Posted: February 23, 2024 (Updated 1 day ago)

Posted: January 3, 2024 (Updated 2 days ago)

Amazon is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status.