Sr. Research Scientist, AWS Security

About the role

The AWS Security team seeks a Research Scientist to apply rigorous quantitative methods to problems at the intersection of cloud security and customer experience. Key responsibilities include designing and developing quantitative measurement models, defining and validating customer perception constructs, extending scientific techniques, partnering with cross-functional teams, establishing metrics, ensuring scientific rigor, and presenting findings to senior leaders.

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.

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

Preferred Qualifications

• 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
• 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

Benefits

Amazon offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance, 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.