Economist, Prime Machine Learning and Economics

Job summary
Amazon Prime is looking for a talented Economist to support analysis of increasingly complex business questions. At Amazon Prime, understanding customer data is paramount to our success in providing customers with relevant and enticing benefits such as fast free shipping, instant videos and music, in an expanding number of international marketplaces. At Amazon you will be working in one of the world's largest and most exciting big-data environments. The Economist role occupies a unique space at the intersection of technology, machine-learning, econometrics, large-scale scientific computing, social science, and product management. The Strategic Insights team is part of the broader Prime Machine Learning and Economics team, which is the core science team within Amazon Prime. We build audit mechanisms, create scalable strategic insights, and run model-driven simulations to ensure Prime remains one of the world’s most loved membership programs.

As an Economist within the Strategic Insights team, you will work closely with a team of economists, applied scientists, and engineers, as well as our world-class business and software development teams to propose and estimate novel statistical and econometric models to directly inform strategic decisions about characteristics of the Amazon Prime membership. These include what membership prices, benefits, and benefit content deliver the most value for our customers around the world. The economist will solve these problems using causal inference, machine learning, time series and build on existing structural modeling. This position is unique in its exposure to senior members of the Prime team and other Amazon business units.

The successful candidate will have demonstrated their own capacity for building, estimating, and defending causal statistical models using software such as R, Python, or STATA, with a willingness to learn causal inference and structural econometrics and creating production software. Knowledge of SQL, machine learning, and large-scale scientific computing using distributed computing infrastructures such as Spark-Scala or PySpark would be a plus. The candidate will be able to own end-to-end a research agenda in partnership with Product teams and will have to learn to invent and simplify in an ambiguous setting. The role will provide the opportunity to have a large strategic, world-wide impact on the customer experiences of Prime members.

Basic Qualifications

· PhD in Economics or closely related field
· PhD in Economics
· Proven experience in building statistical models using R, Python, STATA, or a related software (especially, discrete choice modeling), with a willingness to learn and develop additional skills in causal inference, structural econometrics, machine learning, large-scale scientific / distributed computing.
· 2+ years of post-PhD experience

Preferred Qualifications

· Proficiency in Spark-Scala or Py-Spark
· Proven record of bringing high impact statistical models to production, at scale
· Willingness to learn Spark-Scala and/or PySpark
· Ability to work effectively within an interdisciplinary science team of economists, applied scientists, software engineers, and data engineers
· Ability to communicate relevant scientific insights from data to senior business leaders, financial analysts, and product managers
· Extensive theoretical statistical training, including the ability to carefully adapt/modify existing statistical tools to accommodate new applied use cases
· Experience with utility-theory based discrete choice-modeling
· One or more publications in peer-reviewed statistical journals
· Experience in implementing modern machine-learning methods (e.g., boosted regression trees, random forests, neural networks)





Amazon is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status. For individuals with disabilities who would like to request an accommodation, please visit https://www.amazon.jobs/en/disability/us.