Software Development Engineer – Targeting/Predictive Modeling/Analytics/Machine Learning

Listing Info Software Development Engineer - Kindle Ad Products, Optimization Do you have the passion to analyze data to uncover patterns and to build predictive models? Do you want to make a measurable impact in Amazon's Kindle with Special Offers (KSO) business? Do you look at problems holistically, and thrive on the intricate complexity of designing feedback loops and ecosystems? Do you want to work on projects where you are implementing solutions to real problems that require creative solutions and a deep understanding of the problem space? We are the Kindle Ad Products Optimization team, and we work closely with research scientists, business groups, and other software development teams to provide technical solutions for KSO's business. About Us We're the architects of the Kindle Advertising ad business, the special sauce that makes it work. We're out to improve upon mobile, and change the way advertising works on semi-connected devices. Along the way, we're going to face seemingly impossible problems. We're going to debate about how to solve them, and we'll work together to find a solution that is superior to each of the proposals we came in with. We'll make tough decisions, but we'll all understand why. We'll be the dream team. Some Problem Spaces We'll Be Working On INVENTORY MANAGEMENT - advertisers spend a lot of money to develop their ads, and want a guarantee that those ads will actually get shown. We need to be able to make those guarantees and optimize future inventory allocation across numerous independent dimensions. You'll need to design a system that will be able to manage the complexity of many semi-independent overlapping feature dimensions to predict future inventory volume on any combination of those dimensions, and optimize the allocation of that predicted inventory. PREDICTIVE MODELING - there's an almost overwhelming amount of data available, and we need to build the best models to predict which signals are likely to have an impact and which aren't. We're building platforms to automate the generation, validation, and publishing of models that incorporate all available data to predict any measurable signal. You'll need to be both an engineer and scientist; you'll build the platforms to test and measure your hypotheses, iterate on your designs, and find innovative signals and solutions that fundamentally shift the effectiveness of our systems. TARGETING - we have a wealth of data already about the customers we interact with; what they've been shopping for, what they've recently purchased, etc. This data can be used to help us decide what else they are likely to be interested in and to respond to. Accessing this data and making decisions across large numbers of potential responses quickly is a tough problem, and requires complex high scale engineering both online and offline. You may specialize in one area or another, but will need to consider the problem holistically. Questions?: You may already know if you're a fit, but perhaps you're worried about technology and experience requirements? Don't be - we're looking for smart, proven, engineers; if you're the right candidate, we're flexible.

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related field
• 4+ years professional experience in software development
• Computer Science fundamentals in object-oriented design
• Computer Science fundamentals in data structures
• Computer Science fundamentals in algorithm design, problem solving, and complexity analysis
• Proficiency in, at least, one modern programming language such as C, C++, Java

You're still worried? Here are some things that we'd prefer to see, though none is independently a requirement:

• Online distributed systems and platform infrastructure design and implementation experience in the advertising, algorithmic search, or bioinformatics industries .
• Experience implementing services using Java or C++ in a Linux/Unix environment.
• Delivered a low-latency, consumer-internet-scale web services operating in a 24x7 environment.
• Delivered ad targeting and serving infrastructure.
• Previously held a technical leadership role for several complete large-scale projects.
• Experience with Agile (SCRUM, RUP, XP), OO modeling, web services, UNIX, middleware, database and data mining systems.
• Experience mentoring and training the engineering community on complex technical issues sharp analytical abilities and proven design skills track record of delivery