Senior Applied Scientist, Kumo

Amazon is hiring a Senior Applied Scientist, Kumo in Bellevue, United States. It pays $167k-$226k 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.
The listed pay starts close to the typical applied scientist posting on Level.
Tools and skills the posting cites include Python, PyTorch and AI agents.
Level classifies it as a senior role.
Level lists 20,000+ other open roles at Amazon.

AI in this role

Senior Applied Scientist to drive AI innovation, build agentic systems, and fine-tune language models at AWS.

PythonPyTorch

ai-agentsfine-tuningnlpmachine-learningdeep-learningnatural-language-processinggenerative-aiagentic-ai

AWS Applied AI Solutions (AAIS) is building toward a future where every business innovates with Amazon AI teammates. To get there, we build AI solutions that improve human capabilities and transform entire business functions. We create end-to-end products that surprise and delight out-of-the-box, making complex things easy and hard things possible, with no cloud experience required. We start with customers who embrace the future and build bridges to meet the rest where they are. We pursue ambitious opportunities with conviction, and we are looking for builders who share that mindset.

At AWS we use Artificial Intelligence to be able to identify every need of a customer across all AWS services before they have to tell us about it and help customers adopt best practices while architecting on the cloud. We are looking for a Senior Applied scientist who will function as a science leader and drive innovation with Gen AI to bring paradigm shift to how the business operates and build "best in the world" experience that customers will love!

Some of the science challenges we work on include building Agentic AI systems for complex use cases such as optimizing customers' cloud architectures innovating optimization techniques for cost-efficiency in agentic workflows fine-tuning language models for domain specific use cases building scalable agentic evaluation systems designing continual learning systems that incorporate real-time customer and operational feedback to improve model performance over time and developing collaborative filtering approaches that surface personalized recommendations at scale.

You will have an opportunity to lead invent and design technology that will directly impact every customer across all AWS services. We are building industry-leading technology that cuts across a wide range of ML techniques from Natural Language Processing to Deep Learning and Generative Artificial Intelligence. You will be a key driver in taking something from an idea to an experiment to a prototype and finally to a live production system.

As a senior scientist on this team you will define the science vision and long-term research roadmap for your problem space. You will set technical and research direction and ensure our approaches remain at the frontier of what's possible. You will mentor junior scientists and engineers helping them grow their technical depth develop scientific rigor and navigate ambiguous problem spaces. You will raise the bar for the team through code reviews science experimentation reviews and by fostering a culture of experimentation and intellectual curiosity.

Key job responsibilities
• Deliver real world production systems at AWS scale.
• Work closely with the business to understand the problem space identify the opportunities and formulate the problems.
• Use machine learning data mining statistical techniques Generative AI and others to create actionable meaningful and scalable solutions for the business problems.
• Analyze and extract relevant information from large amounts of data and derive useful insights.
• Work with software engineering teams to deliver production systems with your ML models
• Establish scalable efficient automated processes for large scale data analyses model development model validation and model implementation

A day in the life

Diverse Experiences
AWS 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 AWS?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped innovating — that’s why customers from the most successful startups to Global 500 companies trust our robust suite of products and services to power their businesses.

Inclusive Team Culture
Here at AWS, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Our employee-led affinity groups foster a culture of inclusion that empower us to be proud of our differences. Ongoing events and learning experiences, including our Conversations on Race and Ethnicity (CORE) and AmazeCon (gender diversity) conferences, inspire us to never stop embracing our uniqueness.

Mentorship & 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, mentorship 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 we strive for flexibility as part of our working culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve in the cloud.

About the team
Amazon values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the preferred 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.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped innovating — that's why customers from the most successful startups to Global 500 companies trust our robust suite of products and services to power their businesses.

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 in the cloud.

Here at AWS, it's in our nature to learn and be curious. Our employee-led affinity groups foster a culture of inclusion that empower us to be proud of our differences. Ongoing events and learning experiences, including our Conversations on Race and Ethnicity and AmazeCon conferences, inspire us to never stop embracing our uniqueness.

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, mentorship and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.

Basic qualifications

- PhD, or Master's degree and 6+ years of applied research experience
- 3+ years of building machine learning models for business application experience
- Knowledge of programming languages such as C/C++, Python, Java or Perl
- Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
- Experience with neural deep learning methods and machine learning

Preferred qualifications

- Experience with large scale machine learning systems such as profiling and debugging and understanding of system performance and scalability

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, WA, Bellevue - 167,100.00 - 226,100.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Senior Applied Scientist, Kumo at Amazon rates 95 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

Senior Applied Scientist, Kumo is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $167k-$226k a year.
The role is based in US, WA, Bellevue.
The job was posted on September 14, 2026.
Seniority: senior.
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-tuningNLPMachine learningDeep learningNatural Language ProcessingGenerative AIAgentic AI

Also common in applied scientist jobs at this level

LLM Reinforcement learning TensorFlow Spark Computer vision scikit-learn

Pay

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

This posting starts close to 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?
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 deep learning was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: AI agents, Fine-tuning, NLP, Machine learning, and Deep learning. 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.

Get your CV reviewed before you apply

Send your CV and the role you want next. Your review arrives by email within 3 days.

Get a free CV review Check your resume with the ATS resume checker