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Principal Applied Scientist, Foundation AI Assets (FAI)

Amazon

Boston, MAJob$199–269K/yrSeen 2w agoSeen in employer's feed 5 days ago

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At a glance

Compensation
$199–269K/yr
Location
Boston, MA
Work Authorization
Not specified

Olive lists jobs from US employers, including remote roles you can work from the United States.

Requirements

Credentials this posting asks for.

Doctorate

Job overview

The Principal Applied Scientist will define research directions, develop and evaluate frontier assets for generative AI models, and translate research into practice. The role provides technical and scientific leadership, including rigorous experimentation, scientific reviews, organizational planning, hiring, mentorship, and leadership development. The team focuses on large language models and applied science solutions at scale that shape customer experiences.

Skills & qualifications

RequiredNice to have

Skills

Predictive ModelingData AnalysisCustomer Requirements AnalysisJavaC++PythonProblem SolvingAlgorithm DesignComplexity AnalysisNovel Algorithm DevelopmentScientific Publishing

Qualifications

PhD in EE, CS, Math or Related Field5+ Years Predictive Modeling Experience10+ Years Relevant ExperiencePeer-Reviewed Scientific Contributions

Benefits

Medical Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
401(k) Match
Paid Time Off
Parental Leave

Full job description

Description

The Frontier AI Assets (FAI) team is looking for a passionate, talented, and inventive Principal Applied Scientist with a strong deep learning and generative AI background, to focus on the development of software development skills of Nova foundational models.

As a Principal Applied Scientist, you are a trusted part of the technical leadership. You bring business and industry context to science and technology decisions. You set the standard for scientific excellence and make decisions that affect the way we build and integrate algorithms. You solicit differing views across the organization and are willing to change your mind as you learn more. Your artifacts are exemplary and often used as reference across organization.

You are a hands-on scientific leader. Your solutions are exemplary in terms of algorithm design, clarity, model structure, efficiency, and extensibility. You tackle intrinsically hard problems, acquiring expertise as needed. You decompose complex problems into straightforward solutions.

You amplify your impact by leading scientific reviews within your organization or at your location. You scrutinize and review experimental design, modeling, verification, and other research procedures. You probe assumptions, illuminate pitfalls, and foster shared understanding. You align teams toward coherent strategies. You educate, keeping the scientific community up to date on advanced techniques, state of the art approaches, the latest technologies, and trends. You help managers guide the career growth of other scientists by mentoring and playing a significant role in hiring and developing scientists and leads.

Key job responsibilities

You will be responsible for defining key research directions, adopting or inventing new machine learning techniques, conducting rigorous experiments, publishing results, and ensuring that research is translated into practice. You will develop frontier quality assets for training and evaluating GenAI models. You will also participate in organizational planning, hiring, mentorship, and leadership development. You will be technically strong and with a passion for building scalable science and engineering solutions. You will serve as a key scientific resource in full-cycle development (conception, design, implementation, and testing to documentation, delivery, and maintenance).

About the team

The FAI team has the mission to push the envelope in GenAI with LLMs, in order to provide the best-possible experience for our customers.

Our team is focused on pushing the boundaries of applied science at Amazon, building solutions that operate at massive scale and directly shape customer experiences. We value scientific depth, collaborative problem-solving, and a commitment to turning research into measurable impact.

We are investing in the next wave of scientific capabilities and are looking for a Principal Applied Scientist to help define that trajectory. You will work alongside talented scientists, engineers, and product partners in an environment that encourages intellectual curiosity and rewards bold ideas.

Basic Qualifications

  • 5+ years of hands-on work in predictive modeling and analysis experience

  • PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related technical field

  • Experience working in predictive modeling and analysis

  • Experience distilling informal customer requirements into problem definitions, dealing with ambiguity and competing objectives

  • Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language

  • Experience with leading experienced scientists as well as having a record of developing junior members from academia or industry to a career track in a business environment

Preferred Qualifications

  • 10+ years of relevant work in industry or academia experience

  • Knowledge of problem solving, algorithm design and complexity analysis

  • Experience creating novel algorithms and advancing the state of the art

  • Have peer-reviewed scientific contributions in premier journals and conferences

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, MA, Boston - 198,900.00 - 269,000.00 USD annually

How this job compares

Set against the 1,075 open Applied Scientist jobs on Olive Jobs, counted November 3, 2026.

Pay
  • This posting$199–269K/yr
  • Massachusetts median$158–226K/yr44 salary ranges
  • US median$158–264K/yr1,036 salary ranges

This range's midpoint, $234K, is 19% above the Massachusetts median midpoint ($197K) — in the top quarter of Applied Scientist salary ranges in Massachusetts.

Openings
Olive Jobs lists 47 open Applied Scientist jobs in Massachusetts and 1,075 across the US. Under 1% of them nationwide are listed as remote or flexible.
Hiring the most in Massachusetts
Experience
This posting asks for at least 5 years of experience; Applied Scientist postings that state a minimum ask for 5 years at the median (918 postings).
Education
This posting asks for a doctorate or professional degree; 102 of the 1,075 open Applied Scientist jobs (9%) ask for a doctorate or professional degree.

Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on November 3, 2026. Pay medians are the middle values of the low ends and of the high ends of postings that list both ends of a range in the same cadence (a yearly salary or an hourly rate); a range's midpoint is halfway between its ends. Pay and experience figures resting on fewer than 20 postings are left out.

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