What are the responsibilities and job description for the Sr. Research Scientist, AWS Security position at Amazon Web Services (AWS)?
Description
AWS Security is seeking a Research Scientist to apply rigorous quantitative methods to problems at the intersection of cloud security and customer experience. In this role, you will design and conduct large-scale research studies—leveraging advanced statistical modeling, survey research, and behavioral science—to surface actionable insights.
Key job responsibilities
Design and develop quantitative measurement models—including structural equation models (SEM) and latent variable frameworks—that map the relationships between security experiences and customer perception outcomes.
Define and validate customer perception constructs through confirmatory factor analysis, survey design, and large-scale data collection across diverse customer segments, including technical and non-technical decision-makers.
Extend existing scientific techniques and invent new approaches to address complex measurement challenges in the enterprise and emerging technology domain, including multi-stakeholder modeling, cross-segment analysis, and longitudinal study design.
Partner cross-functionally with security specialists, program managers, and customer teams to integrate data sources into a unified research program.
Establish baseline metrics and develop leading and lagging indicators that enable data-driven goal-setting and ongoing measurement of customer perception trends over time.
Ensure scientific rigor by documenting methodology, validating model fit using established statistical criteria, and maintaining reproducibility of results.
A day in the life
You will spend your time designing research instruments, analyzing complex multi-source datasets, iterating on quantitative models, and presenting findings to senior leaders. You will collaborate with program managers, engineers, and strategists to connect research insights to real-world customer outcomes.
About The Team
The AWS Security team owns security for all services offered by AWS, including EC2 and S3. This creates a lot of different opportunities for cross-team collaboration and high visibility into the company. We dive deep into security technologies to innovate and provide our customers the best possible experience with every transaction that happens in the cloud. As part of the AWS Security team, you’ll work alongside a motivated and diverse team eager to transform the cloud security landscape.
Diverse Experiences
Amazon Security values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.
Why Amazon Security?
At Amazon, security is central to maintaining customer trust and delivering delightful customer experiences. Our organization is responsible for creating and maintaining a high bar for security across all of Amazon’s products and services. We offer talented security professionals the chance to accelerate their careers with opportunities to build experience in a wide variety of areas including cloud, devices, retail, entertainment, healthcare, operations, and physical stores.
Inclusive Team Culture
In Amazon Security, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Ongoing DEI events and learning experiences inspire us to continue learning and to embrace our uniqueness. Addressing the toughest security challenges requires that we seek out and celebrate a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and voices.
Training & Career Growth
We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, training, and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.
Work/Life Balance
We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why flexible work hours and arrangements are part of our culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve.
Basic Qualifications
Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.
The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including 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, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.
USA, TN, Nashville - 151,200.00 - 204,600.00 USD annually
USA, TX, Austin - 159,200.00 - 215,300.00 USD annually
USA, VA, Herndon - 159,200.00 - 215,300.00 USD annually
USA, WA, Seattle - 159,200.00 - 215,300.00 USD annually
Company - Amazon Web Services, Inc.
Job ID: A10450623
AWS Security is seeking a Research Scientist to apply rigorous quantitative methods to problems at the intersection of cloud security and customer experience. In this role, you will design and conduct large-scale research studies—leveraging advanced statistical modeling, survey research, and behavioral science—to surface actionable insights.
Key job responsibilities
Design and develop quantitative measurement models—including structural equation models (SEM) and latent variable frameworks—that map the relationships between security experiences and customer perception outcomes.
Define and validate customer perception constructs through confirmatory factor analysis, survey design, and large-scale data collection across diverse customer segments, including technical and non-technical decision-makers.
Extend existing scientific techniques and invent new approaches to address complex measurement challenges in the enterprise and emerging technology domain, including multi-stakeholder modeling, cross-segment analysis, and longitudinal study design.
Partner cross-functionally with security specialists, program managers, and customer teams to integrate data sources into a unified research program.
Establish baseline metrics and develop leading and lagging indicators that enable data-driven goal-setting and ongoing measurement of customer perception trends over time.
Ensure scientific rigor by documenting methodology, validating model fit using established statistical criteria, and maintaining reproducibility of results.
A day in the life
You will spend your time designing research instruments, analyzing complex multi-source datasets, iterating on quantitative models, and presenting findings to senior leaders. You will collaborate with program managers, engineers, and strategists to connect research insights to real-world customer outcomes.
About The Team
The AWS Security team owns security for all services offered by AWS, including EC2 and S3. This creates a lot of different opportunities for cross-team collaboration and high visibility into the company. We dive deep into security technologies to innovate and provide our customers the best possible experience with every transaction that happens in the cloud. As part of the AWS Security team, you’ll work alongside a motivated and diverse team eager to transform the cloud security landscape.
Diverse Experiences
Amazon Security values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying.
Why Amazon Security?
At Amazon, security is central to maintaining customer trust and delivering delightful customer experiences. Our organization is responsible for creating and maintaining a high bar for security across all of Amazon’s products and services. We offer talented security professionals the chance to accelerate their careers with opportunities to build experience in a wide variety of areas including cloud, devices, retail, entertainment, healthcare, operations, and physical stores.
Inclusive Team Culture
In Amazon Security, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Ongoing DEI events and learning experiences inspire us to continue learning and to embrace our uniqueness. Addressing the toughest security challenges requires that we seek out and celebrate a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and voices.
Training & Career Growth
We’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, training, and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional.
Work/Life Balance
We value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why flexible work hours and arrangements are part of our culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve.
Basic Qualifications
- PhD, or Master's degree and 5 years of quantitative field research experience
- Experience with statistical analytics and programming languages such as R, Python, Ruby, etc.
- Experience in delivering end-to-end customer research studies, including study design, fieldwork (qualitative research moderation and survey execution), analysis, recommendations, reporting and presentation of results to senior leadership
- 3 years of relevant research experience applying structural equation modeling (SEM), factor analysis, or latent variable modeling to real-world measurement problems
- Experience communicating qualitative research methods and findings to non-qualitative researchers
- Experience with big data technologies such as AWS, Hadoop, Spark, Pig, Hive etc.
- PhD in Engineering, Technology, Science, Operations Research, Robotics, Mathematics, or related fields, or a Associate's degree or above and experience in causal modeling like graphical models, causal Bayesian network, potential outcomes, A/B testing, experiments, quasi-experiments, and data science workflows
- Have peer-reviewed scientific contributions in premier journals and conferences
- Experience in specific technology domain areas like software development, cloud computing, systems engineering, infrastructure, security, networking, data and analytics
- Prior work in customer perception modeling, brand trust research, customer experience measurement, or technology adoption research
- Familiarity with longitudinal study design and panel data analysis
Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.
The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including 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, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.
USA, TN, Nashville - 151,200.00 - 204,600.00 USD annually
USA, TX, Austin - 159,200.00 - 215,300.00 USD annually
USA, VA, Herndon - 159,200.00 - 215,300.00 USD annually
USA, WA, Seattle - 159,200.00 - 215,300.00 USD annually
Company - Amazon Web Services, Inc.
Job ID: A10450623