Principal Applied Scientist, Search & Assistant, Prime Video Personalization and Discovery

Amazon is hiring a Principal Applied Scientist, Search & Assistant, Prime Video Personalization and Discovery in Seattle, United States. It pays $229k-$309k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.

Level's read on this job

On Level's scale, this applied scientist role is Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
Pay on this posting starts 37% higher than the typical applied scientist posting on Level.
The posting mentions AI agents and fine tuning among its tools and skills.
Level classes it as a lead role.
Amazon has 20,000+ other open roles on Level.

AI in this role

ai-agentsfine-tuning

Are you interested in shaping the future of entertainment through cutting-edge AI? Prime Video’s technology teams are redefining the digital video experience at scale.

As a Principal Applied Scientist at Prime Video, you will be a technical and strategic leader responsible for inventing, developing, and deploying groundbreaking AI solutions that power personalized, relevant, and delightful experiences for hundreds of millions of global customers. You will help shape the vision and direction of key ML systems that support Prime Video’s mission to deliver AI-powered customer experiences.

Prime Video is a fast-growing business with new customer problems emerging every day, and this is the moment to rethink how customers find what they love. We recently launched a new search stack built on LLMs and generative retrieval, and we are now moving from traditional recommender systems to experiences powered by foundation models. You will join a research-driven team that is building and publishing at the same time. This year our scientists submitted work to SIGIR, RecSys, ICLR, CIKM, and ACL, and we host summer interns who work on these problems with us.

Key job responsibilities
- Lead the strategy for applying foundation models and LLMs across Prime Video search and discovery, evolving the current systems rather than rebuilding them
- Advance LLM-based and generative retrieval approaches across search and discovery
- Make LLM-powered experiences more efficient and scalable through model fine-tuning, distillation, and inference optimization, and right-size each solution to the problem
- Invent, prototype, and productionize large-scale AI solutions using deep learning, generative AI, reinforcement learning, and optimization techniques
- Explore and deliver agentic workflows and Gen AI customer experiences, including through model fine-tuning approaches
- Provide technical leadership and influence product vision by partnering closely with engineers, product managers, and senior stakeholders
- Design and lead high-impact A/B tests and data analyses that validate hypotheses and guide product direction
- Raise the technical bar across science and engineering through mentorship (including of interns), design reviews, and collaboration
- Publish impactful research internally and externally at top-tier venues such as SIGIR, RecSys, ACL, and similar conferences

A day in the life
In your first year, you will lead how LLMs power the search and discovery experience across Prime Video. You won’t be starting from scratch. You will grow and evolve systems that are already in production, making them smarter, faster, and more efficient. You will decide where a large model adds real customer value and where a leaner approach, such as distillation, fine-tuning, or smaller models, is the better choice. Your work will be highly visible to senior leadership and will directly shape how millions of customers discover content.

About the team
Prime Video Personalization and Discovery (PVPD) is dedicated to creating a highly personalized content discovery experience that not only delights our customers but also drives both short-and long-term business goals. Our scope includes personalized recommendations, search, marketing, and the advanced machine learning technology and infrastructure that underpins these experiences. Our mission is to automate and enhance customer engagement through personalization, using ML and Generative AI.

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.

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, Sunnyvale - 228,700.00 - 309,400.00 USD annually
USA, NY, New York - 218,800.00 - 295,900.00 USD annually
USA, WA, SEATTLE - 198,900.00 - 269,000.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Principal Applied Scientist, Search & Assistant, Prime Video Personalization and Discovery at Amazon rates 87 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

Principal Applied Scientist, Search & Assistant, Prime Video Personalization and Discovery is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $229k-$309k a year.
The role is based in US, WA, Seattle.
The job was posted on June 29, 2026.
Seniority: lead.
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

AI agentsFine-tuning

Also common in applied scientist jobs at this level

NLP TensorFlow Spark Computer vision AWS scikit-learn

Pay

This job starts at: $229k
Typical applied scientist job: $167k

This posting starts 37% above the typical applied scientist job. See applied scientist jobs

Questions you could be asked

How do you decide when an AI agent can act on its own versus asking for approval first?
Walk me through fine-tuning a model: what data did you use, and how did you check the result?
How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?
Tell me about a time a model underperformed in production. How did you find out, and what did you change?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: AI agents and Fine-tuning. 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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