AmazonSr. Applied Scientist, Alexa Smart Home
Amazon is hiring a Sr. Applied Scientist, Alexa Smart Home in Vancouver, Canada. It pays CAD 196k-CAD 327k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.
Level's read on this job
- Builds AI ●●●● is how Level rates this applied scientist role: the job is building AI systems.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include TensorFlow, scikit-learn and machine learning.
- Level classifies it as a senior role.
- Level lists 20,000+ other open roles at Amazon.
AI in this role
Own the scientific direction and production of LLM and agentic systems for Alexa Smart Home intelligence.
You will define the research agenda for your area, partner deeply with engineering to bring models into production, and raise the scientific bar
across the broader team. You will work at the intersection of large language models, agentic orchestration, personalization, and real-world heterogeneity across homes, devices, and occupants. This is a hands-on role: you will frame the problems, build the models, guide the system design, and mentor other scientists, while influencing product and technical roadmaps beyond your immediate team.
Key job responsibilities
- Independently identify, frame, and solve ill-defined research problems tied to broad Smart Home problem areas, delivering with limited guidance.
- Define system-level technical requirements and partner with engineering teams to adapt scientific techniques to meet production constraints (latency, cost, reliability), making appropriate tradeoffs.
- Own the science strategy and roadmap for a workstream; anticipate future business and technical requirements.
- Design and run rigorous experimentation and evaluation to validate approaches and quantify customer/business impact.
- Build consensus on scientific approach and best practices across multiple teams; influence product features and technical direction beyond your own team.
- Actively mentor and develop other scientists, and raise the bar in hiring.
- Contribute to the internal and external scientific community through publications, patents, and dissemination of scientific artifacts.
A day in the life
No two days look alike, but the throughline is owning a scientific problem from question to production impact. You might dig into evaluation results to find where the experience falls short, frame a hypothesis, and prototype with LLMs or agentic techniques. You will pair with engineering to turn a promising model into a production-ready design, weighing latency, cost, and reliability tradeoffs. Expect alignment with product managers on customer problems, working sessions with fellow scientists, and time mentoring teammates. Your customers are Alexa smart home users across millions of households; your stakeholders span product, engineering, and partner science teams.
About the team
We are the science team behind Alexa's smart home experience. We are applied scientists and science engineers making the home genuinely intelligent: anticipatory, personalized, and effortless. Our mission is to move Alexa from reacting to commands toward understanding a household's rhythms and acting helpfully on the customer's behalf, reliably and at scale. Because no two homes are alike, we embrace that diversity rather than paper over it. We value research-grounded decisions, hands-on work, and long-horizon bets. Scientists own their areas end-to-end, mentor one another, publish, and partner closely with engineering and product.
Basic qualifications
- 3+ years of building machine learning models for business application experience
- PhD, or Master's degree and 6+ years of applied research experience
- Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
- Experience with neural deep learning methods and machine learning
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with modeling tools such as R, scikit-learn, Spark MLLib, MxNet, Tensorflow, numpy, scipy etc.
- Experience with large scale distributed systems such as Hadoop, Spark etc.
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. As a total compensation company, Amazon's package may include other elements such as sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, basic life & AD&D insurance), Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP), Deferred Profit Sharing Plan (DPSP), paid time off, and other resources to improve health and well-being. We thank all applicants for their interest, however only those interviewed will be advised as to hiring status.
CAN, BC, Vancouver - 195,900.00 - 327,200.00 CAD annually
How we rate this
Sr. Applied Scientist, Alexa Smart Home 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.
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.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in applied scientist jobs at this level
Pay
- Typical applied scientist job
- $167k
Use the typical applied scientist figure as a reference when pay comes up. See applied scientist jobs
Questions you could be asked
- Tell me about a project where machine learning was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where large language models was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where agentic systems was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where applied science was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where experimentation was part of your work. What did you do?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Machine learning, Large Language Models, Agentic Systems, Applied Science, and Experimentation. 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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