Lead Applied Scientist, Foundation Model Development

Join the forefront of science and engineering with Amazon's innovative Foundation Model team. Here, you'll collaborate with top-tier scientists and engineers to revolutionize logistics through cutting-edge AI and foundational models. We are looking for a highly skilled Lead Applied Scientist to pioneer groundbreaking foundation models that facilitate the delivery of billions of packages across the globe. In this role, you will blend technical expertise with scientific leadership, ensuring our team delivers robust, reliable solutions for fast-paced real-world challenges. You will utilize Amazon's extensive data and computational resources to tackle ambitious problems across a broad array of Amazon delivery scenarios. Key Job Responsibilities: Design and implement innovative deep learning architectures utilizing diverse modalities, including image, video, and geospatial data. Address computational challenges to train foundation models on large volumes of Amazon data and achieve inference at scale, leveraging the latest advancements in hardware and deep learning frameworks. As a developer of foundation models, collaborate with multiple teams to create adaptations for Amazon's Last Mile delivery use cases, enhancing the experience and safety of delivery drivers and customers alike, while improving the efficiency of the delivery network. Provide technical guidance for specific research initiatives, ensuring robust performance in production settings. Mentor fellow scientists while maintaining significant contributions to technical projects. A Day in the Life: Engage in the development and implementation of novel foundation model architectures, actively working with data and our comprehensive training and evaluation tools. Support and guide fellow scientists in addressing intricate technical problems, from trajectory planning to effective multi-task learning. Collaborate with engineers to establish scalable, reusable infrastructure that supports model training, evaluation, and inference. Lead focused technical initiatives from inception to deployment, ensuring seamless integration with production systems, and drive critical technical discussions with team members and stakeholders. Conduct experiments to prototype and validate new ideas. Provide continuous mentorship to team members while making substantial hands-on technical contributions. About the Team: The Foundation Model team is committed to merging ambitious research with tangible impact. Our foundation models endow generative reasoning capabilities that meet the needs of Amazon's global Last Mile delivery network. We exploit Amazon's unmatched computational infrastructure and extensive datasets to deploy state-of-the-art models that enhance the safety, quality, and efficiency of deliveries. Our scope covers everything from multimodal training with varied data inputs to advanced modeling techniques that can adapt to diverse real-world scenarios. We manage the entire process from data preparation, through model training and evaluation, to inference, including all necessary tools for analysis and performance evaluation. If you're passionate about pushing the limits of logistics through innovation, collaborating with elite scientists and engineers, and witnessing your solutions delivered on a global scale, we want you on our team! Basic Qualifications: PhD or Master’s degree with 8+ years of applied machine learning experience. Proven expertise in designing novel deep learning model architectures and building models from the ground up. Strong proficiency with data management, including experience with SQL and Spark. Expert programming skills in production environments using Python, C++, or similar languages. Demonstrated strong publication record at leading conferences or significant industry experience applying machine learning innovations. Extensive experience leading impactful technical projects. Proven ability to mentor junior scientists and engineers. Preferred Qualifications: Experience with foundation models in industry or research settings. Expertise in designing multi-modal model architectures. Background in developing models for motion prediction, particularly in autonomous driving contexts. Track record of successful machine learning deployments in production. Experience with distributed environments for large-scale model training and inference. Strong history of impactful first-author publications in prominent 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 working cooperatively with colleagues, adhering to excellent standards despite challenges, and ensuring effective communication for exceptional customer service. Please note that criminal history may impact some job duties. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Our inclusive culture empowers all Amazonians to deliver outstanding results for our customers. If you have a disability and require workplace adjustments during the application or interview process, please visit the Amazon jobs site for further information. The base salary range for this role is as follows: USA, CA, Santa Clara - 228,700.00 - 309,400.00 USD annually USA, NY, New York - 218,800.00 - 295,900.00 USD annually USA, TX, Austin - 198,900.00 - 269,000.00 USD annually USA, WA, Bellevue - 198,900.00 - 269,000.00 USD annually

Created: 2026-03-10