Applied Scientist

Job description

DESCRIPTION

Are you interested in delighting Alexa customers around the world? Come join us and help shape Alexa's future. We have a unique position in the Alexa AI Knowledge team to solve interesting problems related to Alexa’s Speech Recognition (ASR) capabilities in the many languages she supports today.

Our challenge is to ensure Alexa answers every question in any language, on any topic, at any time. "Who won the football match?", "How long till Diwali?", "How old is Dresden Cathedral?" We aim to answer these questions the first time they are asked in a way that’s natural, engaging and fun.

We’re looking for an Applied Scientist to research, build and test novel techniques (e.g. deep neural network architectures) toward our end goal of reducing the friction customers feel when Alexa doesn’t understand a user’s spoken question or when it requires repeating or rephrasing to get an answer. The ideal candidate is a creative problem solver, and will have industry and academic experience in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML). This person will help us continually re-think the problem, draw on the current academic and industry literature, and is fluent in using data-driven arguments in writing to inspire and influence a range of audiences.

We sit at the center of the product with an opportunity to make a large and long-lasting impact. You will have the opportunity to own and affect real change to the product and business. You will also be at the cutting edge of computational linguistics and NLP, with stakeholders and customers around the world.

This job will test your skills across the board. Interesting problems? Check. Ability to deeply understand Speech Recognition, Knowledge Graph, and Search technologies? Check. Access to large data sets and senior scientists across Amazon? Check. Not to mention: you will influence our technical architecture, deploy changes that impact millions of customers, and advance the state of the art.

And while the challenges are big and the pace fast, we have fun while we’re at it. It’s a high-energy, good-natured, and supportive environment. If you think you have what it takes to change the world, then apply to join us. We work hard, have fun, and make history at Amazon!

This position is based in Cambridge or London with at least one day per week in Cambridge and requires periodic international travel (quarterly).

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

· A passion for Alexa and spoken languages
· Excellent publication record at well-known conferences
· Doctorate in Computer Science or Applied Mathematics

Desired profile

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

· 2+ years’ industry experience in Machine Learning
· Experience with customer-driven research
· Ability to write concisely and logically for a broad audience
· Fluent in Python with working knowledge of Java or C++
· Advanced in iterative statistical model development
· Experience with international and language expansion programs
· Strong bias for action with a "get it done" attitude
· Doctorate in a technical field