Principal Economist, Amazon Search

The Amazon Search team develops cutting-edge search and advertising technologies that enhance customer experiences across Amazon’s global platforms. Whether a customer is typing a query or exploring product categories, the team’s distributed systems are at work, serving millions daily with fault-tolerant, high-performance solutions.

This role focuses on designing innovative economic frameworks to improve product selection in customer consideration sets, evaluating customer frictions in the search process, and coordinating product discovery with other marketplace systems like pricing, delivery, and inventory.

Ideal candidates will bring a deep understanding of Economics, demonstrated expertise in structural econometrics, strong project leadership in ambiguous situations, and a proven ability to collaborate across multidisciplinary teams. Familiarity with recommendation systems and information retrieval technologies is beneficial but not mandatory.

Key Responsibilities:

• Build scalable economic, causal, and machine learning frameworks to optimize Amazon’s search functionalities.
• Develop demand estimation models, internalize spillover effects, and address long-term impacts on customer preferences.
• Design methods to evaluate newly launched products, considering their influence on price, brand awareness, and customer perception.
• Create theoretical search and browsing models to measure customer frictions and assess changes in the user experience.
• Coordinate product discovery efforts with marketplace systems, optimizing decisions related to pricing, delivery, and inventory.

Basic Qualifications:

• PhD in Economics, Computer Science, or related disciplines such as Mathematics or Statistics.
• Minimum of 10 years of experience in research, consulting, industry, or government roles.
• Expertise in structural econometrics and experience with big data, machine learning, or data science.
• Proficiency in coding languages such as Python, R, or Stata for data analysis.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Demonstrated ability to design and implement analytics strategies addressing real-world business challenges.
• Proven track record in delivering scalable data products or scientific solutions.
• Strong written and oral communication skills to translate complex processes for senior leadership and business partners.
• Hands-on experience with information retrieval systems or recommendation engines.
• Extensive experience analyzing large datasets and utilizing modern tools like Spark.

Compensation: The base salary for this role varies from $170,500 to $294,700 depending on geographic location, experience, and skills. Additional compensation may include equity, sign-on bonuses, and comprehensive benefits covering healthcare, retirement plans, and more.

About Amazon Search Team: The Amazon Search team is dedicated to enhancing the way customers discover products by incorporating economic insights into its systems. Through demand estimation and advanced ranking models, the team improves user satisfaction while ensuring the broader optimization of Amazon’s stores.

Inclusive Workplace Culture: Amazon thrives on diversity and is committed to maintaining an inclusive and equitable workplace. Applications from individuals of all backgrounds are welcomed.

Amazon provides accommodations throughout the hiring process to ensure accessibility for candidates with disabilities.

Tagged as: +10 years