Senior Applied Scientist , EC2- Onhand Capacity Optimization

Amazon • Seattle, WA

1d

About The Position

AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Capacity Research and Engineering Org is looking
for an experienced applied optimization expert. This leader will join the Onhand
Packing Science team to design, implement, and scale decision-making algorithms
to optimize EC2’s use of existing capacity. The team owns the optimization of
all aspects of virtual instances placement across EC2, from high level supply
shaping right down the final physical machine a customer’s instance gets
allocated to. Given the sheer scale of EC2 any improvement efficiency within
capacity is utilized has significant business impact.

Key job responsibilities
We are seeking an expert with a strong background in mathematical optimization
with excellent modeling skills, with experience using both exact and heuristic
methods. The domain requires a tight collaboration with engineering teams, to
ensure we are able to quickly move from modelling and prototyping to full scale
production usage. You should be confirmable with the needed statistical
approaches for production A/B tests as well as have a solid understanding
experimental design more broadly. Being successful in the role requires having
the scientific breadth to understand the interactions between different phases
of a project from data analysis through to production, including resolving
issues after rollout.

You will be hands-on with the mathematical modeling and implementation, and will
also contribute to the design of the engineering system with the scalability,
extensibility, maintainability, and correctness of the optimization engine in
mind. You will review approaches by other scientists and engineers in terms of
business relevance, technical validity, engineering / science interface, and
computational performance. You will mentor and lead junior scientists by
example. Communicating your results to guide the direction of the business and
working with software development teams to implement your ideas in code is key
to success. You will write technical, and less frequently, business documents
that influence engineering investments and business direction. Collaborating
with other scientists, software engineers, and product managers, you will
develop creative, novel, and data-driven approaches to improve our existing
cloud compute offerings and define new ones in a fast-paced and quickly changing
environment, improving the experience of our customers and impacting the bottom
line of EC2.

Requirements

• PhD in operations research, applied mathematics, theoretical computer science, or equivalent
• 6+ years of relevant academic research or industry experience in developing algorithms.
• Publications in refereed academic journals or conference.
• In-depth knowledge of exact, approximation algorithms, and heuristic methods for solving difficult optimization problems.
• Experience in prototyping and developing software in traditional programming languages (Python, C++, Java etc.).
• Comfortable with SQL and experience with very large-scale dataset.
• Excellent writing skills to document the models and analyses and for presenting business cases with results/conclusions in order to influence important decisions.
• Experience leading large projects across cross functional teams.

Nice To Haves

• Experience collaborating with engineers to deliver novel scientific solutions.

Benefits

• 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
• parental leave

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree