Principal Applied Scientist, Music Catalog and Search, Amazon Music Search and Catalog

Do you want to shape the future of music discovery by building applied science solutions at Amazon scale? Join our Amazon Music team where you'll define and execute the applied science roadmap for catalog and search systems, directly impacting millions of customers worldwide. You'll work at the exciting intersection of large-scale content systems, applied science, and applying the latest advances in foundation models to build an intelligence layer on top of one of the world's largest music and podcast catalogs.

As a Principal Applied Scientist, you'll drive innovation in music content understanding, leveraging foundational models to enrich catalog data intelligence and create breakthrough customer experiences. Your work will span across music catalog, search, and data systems teams, where success is measured by customer satisfaction, partner team success, and music labels' ability to share high-quality content seamlessly.

Key job responsibilities
- Lead the design and implementation of applied science solutions for large-scale music catalog systems, leveraging foundational models to enhance content intelligence and understanding
- Define and execute the technical roadmap for Amazon Music catalog and search teams, driving architectural decisions across multiple systems and ensuring alignment with long-term business objectives
- Design, propose, and collaborate on experiments that leverage rich music content for enhanced customer experiences in search, personalization, and recommendation systems
- Drive technical excellence across three teams (music catalog, music search, music data systems) by conducting design reviews, setting engineering standards, and mentoring senior technical talent
- Solve complex problems at the intersection of content systems and applied science, proactively identifying risks and implementing solutions that balance short-term deliverables with long-term architectural maintainability

About the team
The Amazon Music Catalog and Search team is responsible to help our customers discover the most relevant audio content including music, podcasts and audiobooks. The team invents technology at the intersection of the largest audio catalog in the world, applying latest advances in foundation models and proprietary data assets of Amazon Music. We build technology and products that is deployed worldwide but at the same time is customizable for local markets. We measure our success by the success of our customers, partners and audio content creators.

- PhD, or Master's degree and 10+ years of applied research experience
- Experience working in content understanding systems in digital media
- Experience building applied science solutions on top of foundational models

- Experience in large knowledge graphs
- Experience with large scale distributed data systems
- Experience in search retrieval and ranking
- Experience in designing and evaluating online experiments


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.

Pursuant to the San Francisco 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, San Francisco - 228,700.00 - 309,400.00 USD annually
USA, CA, Sunnyvale - 228,700.00 - 309,400.00 USD annually