Applied Scientist II, Amazon Search (Query Understanding and Ranking), Bengaluru
Job Description
Amazon Search is hiring an Applied Scientist II in query understanding and ranking in Bengaluru to improve search results and autocomplete across every language and locale Amazon supports. The role covers semantic matching, reinforcement learning for result quality and low-latency model design.
At a glance
- Role: Applied Scientist II, Amazon Search
- Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
- Posted: 10 August 2026
- Experience: 3+ years building ML models for business use; PhD or master’s degree
- Job ID: 10497888
- Apply: open until filled (re-checked 13 October 2026)
About the query understanding and ranking role
- Build and deploy models that return relevant search results
- Train semantic matching models such as bi-encoders and cross-encoders, including distillation from large foundation models
- Use reinforcement learning and reward modelling to keep improving result quality
- Train multi-objective ranking systems that balance diversity, specificity and relevance
- Design models for strict latency limits using distillation, quantisation and efficient inference
- Lead projects from problem framing to launch
What Amazon is looking for
- 3+ years building ML models for business applications
- A PhD or master’s degree
- Patents or publications at top peer-reviewed venues
- Programming in Java, C++, Python or similar
- Experience in algorithms and data structures, parsing, numerical optimisation, data mining, or parallel, distributed or high-performance computing
Nice to have
- Unix/Linux experience
- Professional software development experience
Pay and location
Amazon’s posting does not state a salary; pay is discussed during the hiring process. The role is based in Bengaluru, India.
How to apply
Apply through the official Amazon job posting. Amazon’s posting does not give a closing date, so the role is open until filled; ResearchJobs.in will re-check this listing on 13 October 2026. Amazon lists the minimum and preferred qualifications on the posting; read both before applying. Check the posting for location and work-authorisation details before you apply.
See all our artificial intelligence jobs, or browse more research jobs on ResearchJobs.in.
Hiring institution: Amazon
Official advertisement: www.amazon.jobs
How to prepare for this application
- Semantic matching: revise bi-encoder versus cross-encoder trade-offs and hard-negative mining.
- Ranking metrics: know NDCG, MRR and how offline gains may not show up online.
- Latency: be ready to shrink a model to fit a millisecond budget.
- Multilingual search: think about queries that mix languages and scripts.
- Leadership Principles: Amazon interviews lean on them; prepare two or three STAR stories for each.
About Amazon in India
Amazon runs large science and engineering teams in India, including in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Gurugram. Applied scientists work on machine learning problems across retail, logistics, advertising, devices and cloud services.
