Applied Scientist II, Search Ranking

Amazon is hiring an Applied Scientist II, Search Ranking in Palo Alto, United States. It pays $172k-$222k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.

Level's read on this job

Level rates this applied scientist role Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
Pay on this posting starts in line with the typical applied scientist posting on Level.
The posting mentions PyTorch, TensorFlow and Python among its tools and skills.
Level classes it as a mid-level role.
Amazon has 20,000+ other open roles on Level.

AI in this role

Design, build, and deploy machine-learned ranking models and algorithms to improve search relevance and product discovery.

PyTorchTensorFlowPythonJavaC

nlpmachine-learningranking-algorithmsinformation-retrievaldistributed-computing

The Amazon Search team creates customer-focused search solutions and technologies. Whenever a customer visits an Amazon site worldwide and types in a query or browses through product categories, Amazon Product Search services go to work. We design, develop, and deploy high performance, fault-tolerant distributed search systems used by millions of Amazon customers every day. Our Search Relevance team works to maximize the quality and effectiveness of the search experience for visitors to Amazon websites worldwide.

The Search Relevance team focuses on several technical areas for improving search quality. In this role, you will invent universally applicable signals and algorithms for training machine-learned ranking models. The relevance improvements you make will help millions of customers discover the products they want from a catalog containing millions of products. You will work on problems such as predicting the popularity of new products, developing new ranking features and algorithms that capture unique characteristics, and analyzing the differences in behavior of different categories of customers. The work will span the whole development pipeline, including data analysis, prototyping, A/B testing, and creating production-level components.

Joining this team, you’ll experience the benefits of working in a dynamic, entrepreneurial environment, while leveraging the resources of Amazon.com (AMZN), one of the world’s leading Internet companies. We provide a highly customer-centric, team-oriented environment in our offices located in Palo Alto, California.

Please visit https://www.amazon.science for more information

Key job responsibilities
Your responsibilities include but not limited to:

* Analyze the data and metrics resulting from traffic into Amazon's product search service.
* Design, build, and deploy effective and innovative ML solutions to improve search ranking.
* Evaluate the proposed solutions via offline benchmark tests as well as online A/B tests in production.
* Publish and present your work at internal and external scientific venues in the fields of ML/NLP/IR.

Basic qualifications

- PhD, or Master's degree and 4+ years of CS, CE, ML or related field experience
- Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
- Experience in any of the following areas: algorithms and data structures, parsing, numerical optimization, data mining, parallel and distributed computing, high-performance computing

Preferred qualifications

- Experience using Unix/Linux
- Experience in professional software development
- Experience in state-of-the-art deep learning models architecture design and deep learning training and optimization and model pruning
- Experience with Machine and Deep Learning toolkits such as MXNet, TensorFlow, Caffe and PyTorch

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

Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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, CA, Palo Alto - 171,600.00 - 222,200.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Applied Scientist II, Search Ranking at Amazon rates 90 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Key facts

Applied Scientist II, Search Ranking is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $172k-$222k a year.
The role is based in US, CA, Palo Alto.
The job was posted on August 10, 2026.
Seniority: mid.
Applications are handled by Amazon. Apply on Amazon

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

NLPMachine learningRanking AlgorithmsInformation RetrievalDistributed ComputingPyTorchTensorFlowPython

Also common in applied scientist jobs at this level

Machine learning LLM Generative AI Reinforcement learning Spark AWS

Pay

This job starts at: $172k
Typical applied scientist job: $167k

This posting starts close to the typical applied scientist job. See applied scientist jobs

Questions you could be asked

What NLP problem have you worked on, and how did you measure whether it actually worked?
Tell me about a project where machine learning was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where ranking algorithms was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where information retrieval was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where distributed computing was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: NLP, Machine learning, Ranking Algorithms, Information Retrieval, and Distributed Computing. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

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