Description

The Automated Profitability Management (APM) team’s vision is to offer the world’s most advanced suite of products to optimize and manage the contractual agreements between a retailer and its suppliers.

Our teams build software and machine learning models to optimize contract negotiations, and exchange of goods between Amazon Retail and tens of thousands of brands ("vendors") offering millions of products available to hundreds of millions of Amazon customers worldwide. We handle product costs (How much should Amazon pay for this product?) but also cover supply chain (Who pays the initial shipping costs?), marketing (Should a vendor fund advertising?), reverse-logistics (Who pays for damaged products? What about unsold inventory?) and more.

Our mission is to provide to our customers the world’s largest product assortment at competitive prices, through long term partnership with our vendors.

We are looking for a Principal Economist to lead the development of economic models across APM. You will work with other scientists to build econometrics and machine learning (ML) models that combine internal cost and pricing data, with external inflation signals (e.g. commodity prices, labor rates, transportation costs) to determine where contract changes are warranted. Where possible, you will design and conduct experiments to estimate the long term impact of the new contracts on customers, vendors, and Amazon. You will influence the design of new contracts that better align the incentives between vendors and Amazon. You will help the team create new negotiation workflows that allow vendors and Amazon to reach agreements quicker. To do so, you will work closely with other economists, ML scientists, product managers, and software developers to implement and scale your solutions.

Key job responsibilities

Responsibilities:

• Develop econometric and causal models to improve the outcome of contract negotiations for all products offered by Amazon Retail worldwide.

• Determine the causal impacts of systems, strategy, or inputs changes on business growth and profitability through experiments or observational methods.

• Collaborate with product managers, applied scientists, economists, and software developers to incorporate economic models into negotiation tooling.

• Act as the scientific authority for APM in front of senior Amazon Retail leaders and internal partners on economic topics.

• Mentor junior scientists and set a high technical bar for the team

We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations:

Seattle, WA, USA

Basic Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Economics or related Finance field.

• 8+ years of relevant experience in industry, consulting, government or academic research.

• Expertise in causal modeling methods, both in experimental and observational settings.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Economics or related Finance field.

• 10+ years of relevant experience in industry, consulting, government or academic research.

• Expertise with both reduced-form and structural modeling.

• Hands-on experience with machine learning techniques for prediction and classification problems.

• Proven ability to mentor and develop junior scientists.

• Excellent written and verbal technical communication with both technical and business audience.

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.

Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several US geographic markets. The base pay for this position ranges from $151,500/year in our lowest geographic market up to $294,700/year in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on a number of factors including market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Amazon is a total compensation company. Dependent on the position offered, equity, sign-on payments, and other forms of compensation may be provided as part of a total compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. For more information, please visit https://www.aboutamazon.com/workplace/employee-benefits. This position will remain posted until filled. Applicants should apply via our internal or external career site.