Social
Automated reasoning

A gentle introduction to automated reasoning

Meet Amazon Science’s newest research area.

By Byron Cook
December 1, 2021
18 min read
Share

This week, Amazon Science added automated reasoning to its list of research areas. We made this change because of the impact that automated reasoning is having here at Amazon. For example, Amazon Web Services’ customers now have direct access to automated-reasoning-based features such as IAM Access Analyzer, S3 Block Public Access, or VPC Reachability Analyzer. We also see Amazon development teams integrating automated-reasoning tools into their development processes, raising the bar on the security, durability, availability, and quality of our products.

The goal of this article is to provide a gentle introduction to automated reasoning for the industry professional who knows nothing about the area but is curious to learn more. All you will need to make sense of this article is to be able to read a few small C and Python code fragments. I will refer to a few specialist concepts along the way, but only with the goal of introducing them in an informal manner. I close with links to some of our favorite publicly available tools, videos, books, and articles for those looking to go more in-depth.

Let’s start with a simple example. Consider the following C function:

bool f(unsigned int x, unsigned int y) {
   return (x+y == y+x);
}



        
Take a few moments to answer the question “Could f ever return false?” This is not a trick question: I’ve purposefully used a simple example to make a point.
To check the answer with exhaustive testing, we could try executing the following doubly nested test loop, which calls f on all possible pairs of values of the type unsigned int:

            

    
#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdbool.h>
#include<limits.h>

bool f(unsigned int x, unsigned int y) {
   return (x+y == y+x);
}

void main() {
   for (unsigned int x=0;1;x++) {
      for (unsigned int y=0;1;y++) {
         if (!f(x,y)) printf("Error!\n");
         if (y==UINT_MAX) break;
      }
      if (x==UINT_MAX) break;
   }
}



        
Unfortunately, even on modern hardware, this doubly nested loop will run for a very long time. I compiled it and ran it on a 2.6 GHz Intel processor for over 48 hours before giving up.
Why does testing take so long? Because UINT_MAX is typically 4,294,967,295, there are 18,446,744,065,119,617,025 separate f calls to consider. On my 2.6 GHz machine, the compiled test loop called f approximately 430 million times a second. But to test all 18 quintillion cases at this performance, we would need over 1,360 years.
When we show the above code to industry professionals, they almost immediately work out that f can't return false as long as the underlying compiler/interpreter and hardware are correct. How do they do that? They reason about it. They remember from their school days that x + y can be rewritten as y + x and conclude that f always returns true.

            

    
        






    
    

        
            
Re:Invent 2021 keynote address by Peter DeSantis, senior vice president for utility computing at Amazon Web Services

        
        
            
Skip to 15:49 for a discussion of Amazon Web Services' work on automated reasoning.

        
    



        
An automated reasoning tool does this work for us: it attempts to answer questions about a program (or a logic formula) by using known techniques from mathematics. In this case, the tool would use algebra to deduce that x + y == y + x can be replaced with the simple expression true.
Automated-reasoning tools can be incredibly fast, even when the domains are infinite (e.g., unbounded mathematical integers rather than finite C ints). Unfortunately, the tools may answer “Don’t know” in some instances. We'll see a famous example of that below.
The science of automated reasoning is essentially focused on driving the frequency of these “Don’t know” answers down as far as possible: the less often the tools report "Don't know" (or time out while trying), the more useful they are.
Today’s tools are able to give answers for programs and queries where yesterday’s tools could not. Tomorrow’s tools will be even more powerful. We are seeing rapid progress in this field, which is why at Amazon, we are increasingly getting so much value from it. In fact, we see automated reasoning forming its own Amazon-style virtuous cycle, where more input problems to our tools drive improvements to the tools, which encourages more use of the tools.
A slightly more complex example. Now that we know the rough outlines of what automated reasoning is, the next small example gives a slightly more realistic taste of the sort of complexity that the tools are managing for us.

            

    
void g(int x, int y) {
   if (y > 0)
      while (x > y)
         x = x - y;
}



        
Or, alternatively, consider a similar Python program over unbounded integers:

            

    
def g(x, y):
   assert isinstance(x, int) and isinstance(y, int)
   if y > 0:
      while x > y:
         x = x - y



        
Try to answer this question: “Does g always eventually return control back to its caller?”
When we show this program to industry professionals, they usually figure out the right answer quickly. A few, especially those who are aware of results in theoretical computer science, sometimes mistakenly think that we can't answer this question, with the rationale “This is an example of the halting problem, which has been proved insoluble”. In fact, we can reason about the halting behavior for specific programs, including this one. We’ll talk more about that later.
Here’s the reasoning that most industry professionals use when looking at this problem:
  1. In the case where y is not positive, execution jumps to the end of the function g. That’s the easy case.
  2. If, in every iteration of the loop, the value of the variable x decreases, then eventually, the loop condition x > y will fail, and the end of g will be reached.
  3. The value of x always decreases only if y is always positive, because only then does the update to x (i.e., x = x - y) decrease x. But y’s positivity is established by the conditional expression, so x always decreases.
The experienced programmer will usually worry about underflow in the x = x - y command of the C program but will then notice that x > y before the update to x and thus cannot underflow.
If you carried out the three steps above yourself, you now have a very intuitive view of the type of thinking an automated-reasoning tool is performing on our behalf when reasoning about a computer program. There are many nitty-gritty details that the tools have to face (e.g., heaps, stacks, strings, pointer arithmetic, recursion, concurrency, callbacks, etc.), but there’s also decades of research papers on techniques for handling these and other topics, along with various practical tools that put these ideas to work.

            

    

        
    
        Policy-code.gif
    


        

        
    


    
        
Automated reasoning can be applied to both policies (top) and code (bottom). In both cases, an essential step is reasoning about what's always true.

    


        
The main takeaway is that automated-reasoning tools are usually working through the three steps above on our behalf: Item 1 is reasoning about the program’s control structure. Item 2 is reasoning about what is eventually true within the program. Item 3 is reasoning about what is always true in the program.
Note that configuration artifacts such as AWS resource policies, VPC network descriptions, or even makefiles can be thought of as code. This viewpoint allows us to use the same techniques we use to reason about C or Python code to answer questions about the interpretation of configurations. It’s this insight that gives us tools like IAM Access Analyzer or VPC Reachability Analyzer.
An end to testing?
As we saw above when looking at f and g, automated reasoning can be dramatically faster than exhaustive testing. With tools available today, we can show properties of f or g in milliseconds, rather than waiting lifetimes with exhaustive testing.
Can we throw away our testing tools now and just move to automated reasoning? Not quite. Yes, we can dramatically reduce our dependency on testing, but we will not be completely eliminating it any time soon, if ever. Consider our first example:

            

    
bool f(unsigned int x, unsigned int y) {
   return (x + y == y + x);
}



        
Recall the worry that a buggy compiler or microprocessor could in fact cause an executable program constructed from this source code to return false. We might also need to worry about the language runtime. For example, the C math library or the Python garbage collector might have bugs that cause a program to misbehave.
What’s interesting about testing, and something we often forget, is that it’s doing much more than just telling us about the C or Python source code. It’s also testing the compiler, the runtime, the interpreter, the microprocessor, etc. A test failure could be rooted in any of those tools in the stack.
Automated reasoning, in contrast, is usually applied to just one layer of that stack — the source code itself, or sometimes the compiler or the microprocessor. What we find so valuable about reasoning is it allows us to clearly define both what we do know and what we do not know about the layer under inspection.
Furthermore, the models of the surrounding environment (e.g., the compiler or the procedure calling our procedure) used by the automated-reasoning tool make our assumptions very precise. Separating the layers of the computational stack helps make better use of our time, energy, and money and the capabilities of the tools today and tomorrow.
Unfortunately, we will almost always need to make assumptions about something when using automated reasoning — for example, the principles of physics that govern our silicon chips. Thus, testing will never be fully replaced. We will want to perform end-to-end testing to try and validate our assumptions as best we can.
An impossible program
I previously mentioned that automated-reasoning tools sometimes return “Don’t know” rather than “yes” or “no”. They also sometimes run forever (or time out), thus never returning an answer. Let’s look at the famous "halting problem" program, in which we know tools cannot return “yes” or “no”.
Imagine that we have an automated-reasoning API, called terminates, that returns “yes” if a C function always terminates or “no” when the function could execute forever. As an example, we could build such an API using the tool described here (shameless self-promotion of author’s previous work). To get the idea of what a termination tool can do for us, consider two basic C functions, g (from above),

            

    
void g(int x, int y) {
   if (y > 0)
      while (x > y)
         x = x - y;
}



        
and g2:

            

    
void g2(int x, int y) {
   while (x > y)
      x = x - y;
}



        
For the reasons we have already discussed, the function g always returns control back to its caller, so terminates(g) should return true. Meanwhile, terminates(g2) should return false because, for example, g2(5, 0) will never terminate.
Now comes the difficult function. Consider h:

            

    
void h() {
   if terminates(h) while(1){}
}



        
Notice that it's recursive. What’s the right answer for terminates(h)? The answer cannot be "yes". It also cannot be "no". Why?
Imagine that terminates(h) were to return "yes". If you read the code of h, you’ll see that in this case, the function does not terminate because of the conditional statement in the code of h that will execute the infinite loop while(1){}. Thus, in this case, the terminates(h) answer would be wrong, because h is defined recursively, calling terminates on itself.
Similarly, if terminates(h) were to return "no", then h would in fact terminate and return control to its caller, because the if case of the conditional statement is not met, and there is no else branch. Again, the answer would be wrong. This is why the “Don’t know” answer is actually unavoidable in this case.
The program h is a variation of examples given in Turing’s famous 1936 paper on decidability and Gödel’s incompleteness theorems from 1931. These papers tell us that problems like the halting problem cannot be “solved”, if by“solved” we mean that the solution procedure itself always terminates and answers either “yes” or “no” but never “Don’t know”. But that is not the definition of “solved” that many of us have in mind. For many of us, a tool that sometimes times out or occasionally returns “Don’t know” but, when it gives an answer, always gives the right answer is good enough.
This problem is analogous to airline travel: we know it’s not 100% safe, because crashes have happened in the past, and we are sure that they will happen in the future. But when you land safely, you know it worked that time. The goal of the airline industry is to reduce failure as much as possible, even though it’s in principle unavoidable.
To put that in the context of automated reasoning: for some programs, like h, we can never improve the tool enough to replace the "Don't know" answer. But there are many other cases where today's tools answer "Don't know", but future tools may be able to answer "yes" or "no". The modern scientific challenge for automated-reasoning subject-matter experts is to get the practical tools to return “yes” or “no” as often as possible. As an example of current work, check out CMU professor and Amazon Scholar Marijn Heule and his quest to solve the Collatz termination problem.
Another thing to keep in mind is that automated-reasoning tools are regularly trying to solve “intractable” problems, e.g., problems in the NP complexity class. Here, the same thinking applies that we saw in the case of the halting problem: automated-reasoning tools have powerful heuristics that often work around the intractability problem for specific cases, but those heuristics can (and sometimes do) fail, resulting in “Don’t know” answers or impractically long execution time. The science is to improve the heuristics to minimize that problem.
Nomenclature
A host of names are used in the scientific literature to describe interrelated topics, of which automated reasoning is just one. Here’s a quick glossary:
  • A logic is a formal and mechanical system for defining what is true and untrue. Examples: propositional logic or first-order logic.
  • A theorem is a true statement in logic. Example: the four-color theorem.
  • A proof is a valid argument in logic of a theorem. Example: Gonthier's proof of the four-color theorem. 
  • A mechanical theorem prover is a semi-automated-reasoning tool that checks a machine-readable expression of a proof often written down by a human. These tools often require human guidance. Example: HOL-light, from Amazon researcher John Harrison. 
  • Formal verification is the use of theorem proving when applied to models of computer systems to prove desired properties of the systems. Example: the CompCert verified C compiler. 
  • Formal methods is the broadest term, meaning simply the use of logic to reason formally about models of systems. 
  • Automated reasoning focuses on the automation of formal methods. 
  • A semi-automated-reasoning tool is one that requires hints from the user but still finds valid proofs in logic. 
As you can see, we have a choice of monikers when working in this space. At Amazon, we’ve chosen to use automated reasoning, as we think it best captures our ambition for automation and scale. In practice, some of our internal teams use both automated and semi-automated reasoning tools, because the scientists we've hired can often get semi-automated reasoning tools to succeed where the heuristics in fully automated reasoning might fail. For our externally facing customer features, we currently use only fully automated approaches.
Next steps
In this essay, I’ve introduced the idea of automated reasoning, with the smallest of toy programs. I haven’t described how to handle realistic programs, with heap or concurrency. In fact, there are a wide variety of automated-reasoning tools and techniques, solving problems in all kinds of different domains, some of them quite narrow. To describe them all and the many branches and sub-disciplines of the field (e.g. “SMT solving”, “higher-order logic theorem proving”, “separation logic”) would take thousands of blogs posts and books.
Automated reasoning goes back to the early inventors of computers. And logic itself (which automated reasoning attempts to solve) is thousands of years old. In order to keep this post brief, I’ll stop here and suggest further reading. Note that it’s very easy to get lost in the weeds reading depth-first into this area, and you could emerge more confused than when you started. I encourage you to use a bounded depth-first search approach, looking sequentially at a wide variety of tools and techniques in only some detail and then moving on, rather than learning only one aspect deeply.
Suggested books:
International conferences/workshops:
Tool competitions:
Some tools:
Interviews of Amazon staff about their use of automated reasoning:
AWS Lectures aimed at customers and industry:
AWS talks aimed at the automated-reasoning science community:
AWS blog posts and informational videos:
Some course notes by Amazon Scholars who are also university professors:
A fun deep track:
Some algorithms found in the automated theorem provers we use today date as far back as 1959, when Hao Wang used automated reasoning to prove the theorems from Principia Mathematica.

    



                            
                        

                    
                


                
                    

                        

    

    

        Research areas
    


    
        
    



                    

                

                
                    

                        

    

    

        Tags
    


    
        
    



                    

                

                

                
                    
About the Author

                    

                        
                            
    

        

            
                

                    Byron Cook
                

            
            
            
                

                    Amazon vice president and distinguished scientist Byron Cook is a leader in the field of formal verification, known for his contributions to SAT, SMT, and symbolic model checking, with applications to biological systems, computer operating systems, programming languages, and security. Byron’s work on automated reasoning at Amazon has led to higher levels of assurance in the cloud as well as new customer features.
                

            
        

    



                        
                    

                
            

        


        
    

    
    



    

        
Related content

        
    




    
        
    

    



    
    



    

        
Work with us
See more jobs
        
            See more jobs
        
    




    
        

            

                
                    

                        

    

    

        
            

                Data Scientist, Fleet Planning , Global Fleet Products
            

        

        

            
                
                    

                
            

            

            

            

            
                
US, WA, Bellevue

            
        


        
    
Amazon Global Fleet and Products (GFP) organization is responsible for fleet programs and capacity. The Fleet Planning team is looking for a Data Scientist to drive the most efficient use of fleet. Amazon Middle and Last Mile fleet planning is a complex resource allocation problem. The goal of fleet allocation planning is to optimize the size and mix of fleet allocated to various programs through. Changes in routes, network, exiting DSPs and new DSP onboarding create continuous need for re-allocation of fleet to maintain an efficient network capacity. This requires allocation to adhere to various operational limits (repair network, EV range, Station Charging capability) and also match route’s cube need to vehicles capacity. As a Data Scientist on the Fleet Planning team (GFP), you will be responsible for building new science models (linear programs, statistical and ML models) and enhancing existing models for changing business needs. You would work with program managers in planning, procurement, redeployment, deployment, remarketing, variable fleet and infrastructure programs to build models that would support the requirements of all programs in a coherent plan. Key job responsibilities • Build models and automation for planners for generating vehicle allocation plans • Partner with program teams to test and measure success of implemented model • Lead reviews with senior leadership, deep dive model outputs and explain implications of model recommendations.




        

        

        

        
    


    



                    

                
                    

                        

    

    

        
            

                Research Scientist III, Last Mile Science
            

        

        

            
                
                    

                
            

            

            

            

            
                
IN, KA, Bangalore

            
        


        
    
Are you passionate about solving complex logistics challenges? Our Analytics team is at the forefront of enhancing delivery experiences through data-driven solutions and innovative technology. As a Research Scientist, you will join a team dedicated to optimizing our delivery network, ensuring reliable and efficient service to our customers. We are seeking an enthusiastic, customer-centric professional with strong analytical capabilities to drive impactful projects, implement advanced solutions, and develop scalable processes. In this role, you will have immediate ownership of business-critical challenges and the opportunity to make strategic, data-driven decisions that shape the future of our delivery operations. Your work will directly influence customer experience and operational excellence. The ideal candidate will possess both research science capabilities and program management skills, thriving in an environment that requires independent decision-making and comfort with ambiguity. This role offers the opportunity to make a significant impact on our advanced logistics network while working with pioneering technology and data science applications. Basic qualifications • 3+ years of building machine learning models for business application experience • Knowledge of programming languages such as C/C++, Python, Java or Perl • Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language • Experience with neural deep learning methods and machine learning Preferred qualifications: • PhD in engineering, technology, computer science, machine learning, robotics, operations research, statistics, mathematics or equivalent quantitative field • 5+ years of extensive relevant research experience • Deep expertise in Machine Learning • Proficiency in programming • Core competency in mathematics and statistics • Track record of successful projects in algorithm design and product development • Publications at peer-reviewed conferences or journals • Strategic thinker with good execution skills • Exhibits excellent business judgment • Effective verbal and written communication skills • Experience working with real-world data sets and building scalable models from big data • Experience with modern modeling tools and frameworks such as R, scikit-learn, Spark MLLib, MxNet, Tensorflow • Experience with large scale distributed systems




        

        

        

        
    


    



                    

                
                    

                        

    

    

        
            

                Senior Applied Scientist, Sponsored Products and Brands -- Offsite
            

        

        

            
                
                    

                
            

            

            

            

            
                
US, VA, Arlington

            
        


        
    
The Sponsored Products and Brands (SPB) team at Amazon Ads is re-imagining the advertising landscape through industry leading generative AI technologies, revolutionizing how millions of customers discover products and engage with brands across Amazon.com and beyond. We are at the forefront of re-inventing advertising experiences, bridging human creativity with artificial intelligence to transform every aspect of the advertising lifecycle from ad creation and optimization to performance analysis and customer insights. We are a passionate group of innovators dedicated to developing responsible and intelligent AI technologies that balance the needs of advertisers, enhance the shopping experience, and strengthen the marketplace. If you are energized by solving complex challenges and pushing the boundaries of what's possible with AI, join us in shaping the future of advertising. About our team The Sponsored Products and Brands -- Offsite team builds solutions that extend campaigns beyond the Amazon store, reaching shoppers across third-party environments where they discover and shop. We combine large-scale, low-latency systems with advanced machine learning and AI to deliver high-quality sponsored experiences in high-intent surfaces. Key job responsibilities As a Senior Applied Scientist on this team, you will: * Effectively communicate technical and non-technical ideas with teammates and stakeholders, adjusting your delivery to the audience to maximize impact. * Drive or heavily influence the design of scientifically-complex software solutions or systems. You take ownership of these components, providing a system-wide view and design guidance. These systems or solutions can be brand new or evolve from existing ones. * Define a long-term science vision and roadmap for our Offsite advertising business, driven from our customers' needs. This role combines science leadership, organizational ability, technical strength, product focus, and business understanding. * Work closely with engineers and product managers to design, implement and launch AI solutions end-to-end. * Design and conduct A/B experiments to evaluate proposed solutions based on in-depth data analyses. * Identify opportunities where GenAI solutions can accelerate learning and efficiency, and drive greater advertiser outcomes. * Mentor and guide junior scientists, fostering a collaborative and high-performing team culture. * Stay up-to-date with advancements and the latest modeling techniques in the field




        

        

        

        
    


    



                    

                
                    

                        

    

    

        
            

                Senior Robotics/AI Motor Control Scientist, Fauna
            

        

        

            
                
                    

                
            

            

            

            

            
                
US, NY, New York

            
        


        
    
We are seeking a Robotics/AI Motor Control Scientist to develop cutting-edge machine learning algorithms for motor control systems in robots. In this role, you will focus on creating and optimizing intelligent motor control strategies to enable robots to perform complex, whole-body tasks. Your contributions will be essential in advancing robotics by enabling fluid, reliable, and safe interactions between robots and their environments. Key job responsibilities - Develop controllers that leverage reinforcement learning, imitation learning, or other advanced AI techniques to achieve natural, robust, and adaptive motor behaviors - Collaborate with multi-disciplinary teams to integrate motor control systems with robotic hardware, ensuring alignment with real-world constraints such as actuator dynamics and energy efficiency - Use simulation and real-world testing to refine and validate control algorithms - Stay updated on advancements in robotics, AI, and control systems to apply advanced techniques to robotic motion challenges - Lead technical projects from conception through production deployment - Mentor junior scientists and engineers - Bridge research initiatives with practical engineering implementation About the team Fauna Robotics, an Amazon company, is building capable, safe, and genuinely delightful robots for everyday life. Our goal is simple: make robots people actually want to live and interact with in everyday human spaces. We believe that future won’t arrive until building for robotics becomes far more accessible. Today, too much effort is spent reinventing the fundamentals. We’re changing that by developing tightly integrated hardware and software systems that make it faster, safer, and more intuitive to create real-world robotic products. Our work spans the full stack: mechanical design, control systems, dynamic modeling, and intelligent software. The focus is not just functionality, but experience. We’re building robots that feel responsive, expressive, and genuinely useful. At Fauna, you’ll work at the frontier of this space, helping define how robots move, manipulate, and interact with people in natural environments. It’s an opportunity to solve hard problems across hardware and software with a team focused on making robotics accessible and joyful to build. If you care about making robotics real for everyone and building systems that are as delightful as they are capable, we’re interested in hearing from you. an opportunity to solve hard problems across hardware and software with a team focused on making robotics accessible and joyful to build. If you care about making robotics real for everyone and building systems that are as delightful as they are capable, we’re interested in hearing from you.




        

        

        

        
    


    



                    

                
                    

                        

    

    

        
            

                Applied Scientist, Minerva
            

        

        

            
                
                    

                
            

            

            

            

            
                
IN, KA, Bengaluru

            
        


        
    
We are looking for Applied Scientists to advance how Minerva detects and responds to risk across KDP and Kindle Unlimited, building new models and raising the bar on the ones in production. You will own a problem end to end, from framing and modeling through evaluation and production launch, working with scientists and engineers in Bengaluru and the US. Key job responsibilities - Monitor production risk models and push their quality higher: track performance and drift, improve how performance is measured, and lead the deep-dive science that turns model behavior into better detection. - Design, train, and evaluate improved detection models, and take them to production with engineering partners. - Build datasets, labels, evaluation sets, and metrics, and strengthen them as abuse patterns change. - Write clear readouts with recommendations for scientists, engineers, and policy partners. About the team Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) has empowered a new wave of self-motivated creators, tearing down barriers that once blocked writers from reaching readers. Minerva is the science and analytics organization for Amazon's Books business. We build systems for content understanding, author marketing and discovery, fraud and abuse prevention, and content risk, and we optimize manufacturing, fulfillment, and quality for Print On Demand (POD). We have mature areas and green-field opportunities, with engineering, business intelligence, and data engineering support across our areas. We are now building science teams in Bengaluru that work closely with our scientists in the US. Risk Science, a team within Minerva, keeps fraud, abuse, copyright infringement, and harmful content out of the Books catalog and programs such as Kindle Unlimited, using text, image, and behavioral data.




        

        

        

        
    


    



                    

                
                    

                        

    

    

        
            

                Applied & Research Scientist - Safe Autonomy Frontiers (SAF) Lab, Safe Autonomy Frontiers (SAF) Lab
            

        

        

            
                
                    

                
            

            

            

            

            
                
US, CA, Pasadena

            
        


        
    
We are seeking Applied and Research Scientists to join the Safe Autonomy Frontiers (SAF) Lab. In this role, you will develop and deploy the science of safe autonomy on highly dynamic robots, advancing the frontier through both foundational research and realization on hardware. You will contribute to achieving safe autonomy across three key areas: control barrier function (CBF) theory for robust and performant safety on hardware; safe reinforcement learning for agile whole-body control; and layered safety filters that interface with learning, perception, and semantic reasoning systems. You will validate your work experimentally on state-of-the-art robotic platforms — removing bottlenecks to deployment and enabling robots to safely operate around humans. You will work with the inventor of CBFs, as well as top scientists and engineers at Amazon developing the next generation of safe autonomy. Key job responsibilities -Advance the science of safe autonomy from formal foundations to the integration with learning and perception to validation on hardware — with particular emphasis on methods that bridge these domains. -Test and validate hardware, with a focus on next generation robotic systems. Including locomotion, manipulation and loco-manipulation. -Leverage the deployments on hardware to validate the underlying science, identifying gaps between theory and practice that drive the next cycle of research. hardware to validate the underlying science, identifying gaps between theory and practice that drive the next cycle of research. -Publish research at top-tier robotics, control, and ML venues, and contribute to Amazon’s scientific reputation in advanced robotics. -Collaborate with SAF Lab and Amazon production teams to move research into robots deployed at Amazon scale. A day in the life Amazon offers a full range of benefits that support you and eligible family members, including domestic partners and their children. Benefits can vary by location, the number of regularly scheduled hours you work, length of employment, and job status such as seasonal or temporary employment. The benefits that generally apply to regular, full-time employees include: -Medical, Dental, and Vision Coverage -Maternity and Parental Leave Options -Paid Time Off (PTO) -401(k) Plan If you are not sure that every qualification on the list above describes you exactly, we’d still love to hear from you! At Amazon, we value people with unique backgrounds, experiences, and skillsets. If you’re passionate about this role and want to make an impact on a global scale, please apply! About the team The Safe Autonomy Frontiers (SAF) Lab is the first industry research lab dedicated to safe autonomy, founded by the inventor of control barrier functions. We are developing a universal safety layer for the next generation of robotic systems: mobile robots, manipulators, quadrupeds, and humanoids. Here you will advance performant safety for highly dynamic robots — CBF theory integrated with perception and learning, evaluated on next-generation platforms — and your work will underpin robots operating alongside people at Amazon’s unprecedented scale.




        

        

        

        
    


    



                    

                
                    

                        

    

    

        
            

                2027 Applied Scientist Internship – PhD, Amazon University Talent Acquisition
            

        

        

            
                
                    

                
            

            

            

            

            
                
RO, Bucharest

            
        


        
    
We're building systems that turn research into real-world impact — developing AI-driven detection systems that identify and remediate security access violations across Amazon's global operations, and building ML solutions that leverage product images, text, and tabular data to improve safety and compliance mechanisms across Amazon's entire product catalog. If this sounds interesting to you then we have a range of opportunities for you to explore. We're looking for PhD students across multiple research domains to invent, design, and implement state-of-the-art solutions for never-before-solved problems. Your work here won't just stay in a notebook — it ships to production and reaches customers worldwide. Check out the details below including the job responsibilities, team details, and basic qualifications before submitting your application. You can find more information about the Amazon Science community as well as interview preparation tips via the links below; - https://www.amazon.science/ - https://amazon.jobs/content/en/career-programs/university/science - https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/university-roles/applied-science Key job responsibilities As an Applied Science Intern, you will own the design and development of end-to-end systems. You'll have the opportunity to write technical white papers, create roadmaps and drive production level projects that will support Amazon Science. You will work closely with Amazon scientists and other science interns to develop solutions and deploy them into production. You will have the opportunity to design new algorithms, models, or other technical solutions whilst experiencing Amazon's customer focused culture. The ideal intern should have the ability to work with diverse groups of people and cross-functional teams to solve complex business problems. A day in the life You'll spend your first weeks scoping your project with your mentor, then own the research and implementation end-to-end. Your work could involve building graph-based ML models and knowledge graphs that detect and remediate access violations at global scale, developing behavioral pattern clustering and automated reasoning systems for security operations, or researching multimodal and computer vision approaches on product catalog data to improve safety and compliance mechanisms — depending on the team you're matched with. Many interns publish at top-tier conferences or see their work deployed to production before the internship ends. Interns may also be considered for a return offer at the end of their internship, subject to performance evaluation and headcount availability. Further benefits of an Amazon Science internship include; - All of our internships offer a competitive salary - Interns are paired with an experienced manager and mentor(s) - Interns get invited to different intern program or office events - Interns can build their professional and personal network with other Amazon Scientists - Interns can potentially publish work at top tier conferences About the team We generally hire interns for multiple teams in Romania, including but not limited to; • CoSS — Research and develop ML solutions that improve safety and compliance across Amazon's entire product catalog working with tabular, textual, and product image data using deep learning, computer vision, LLMs, and multimodal models • Monitored Access Detection — Build AI-driven detection and remediation systems that identify global access violations across Amazon — leveraging knowledge graphs, graph modeling, behavioral pattern clustering, generative AI, and reinforcement learning to create a self-improving, closed-loop security system. You'll submit a single application and we'll match you with science teams best aligned with your research interests. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and your application stays active until we find a team match or confirm there are no matches available. Start dates are available throughout the year for durations of between 3–6 months. Please note, each team has different start date and duration preferences — your recruiter will confirm the preferences of the team you're matched with prior to interviewing. We offer science internships in multiple locations across the EMEA region and you can indicate your interest in all these locations by applying here (Austria, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, UAE, and UK). Please note we do not offer remote internships.




        

        

        

        
    


    



                    

                
                    

                        

    

    

        
            

                2027 Applied Scientist Internship – Masters, Amazon University Talent Acquisition
            

        

        

            
                
                    

                
            

            

            

            

            
                
IL, Tel Aviv

            
        


        
    
We're building systems that turn research into real-world impact — powering sports experiences for millions of Prime Video customers, pioneering multimodal document intelligence, building autonomous AI agents that reason, plan, and act, and transforming how customers discover products they love. If this sounds interesting to you then we have a range of opportunities for you to explore. We're looking for Masters students across multiple research domains to invent, design, and implement state-of-the-art solutions for never-before-solved problems. Your work here won't just stay in a notebook — it ships to production and reaches customers worldwide. Check out the details below including the job responsibilities, team details, and basic qualifications before submitting your application. You can find more information about the Amazon Science community as well as interview preparation tips via the links below; - https://www.amazon.science/ - https://amazon.jobs/content/en/career-programs/university/science - https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/university-roles/applied-science Key job responsibilities As an Applied Science Intern, you will own the design and development of end-to-end systems. You'll have the opportunity to write technical white papers, create roadmaps and drive production level projects that will support Amazon Science. You will work closely with Amazon scientists and other science interns to develop solutions and deploy them into production. You will have the opportunity to design new algorithms, models, or other technical solutions whilst experiencing Amazon's customer focused culture. The ideal intern should have the ability to work with diverse groups of people and cross-functional teams to solve complex business problems. A day in the life You'll spend your first weeks scoping your project with your mentor, then own the research and implementation end-to-end. Your work could involve building computer vision models that power live sports experiences for Prime Video, developing multimodal GenAI solutions for AWS document intelligence, creating agentic AI systems that reason and act autonomously, or advancing recommendation models that transform how customers discover content — depending on the team you're matched with. Many interns publish at top-tier conferences or see their work deployed to production before the internship ends. Interns may also be considered for a return offer at the end of their internship, subject to performance evaluation and headcount availability. Further benefits of an Amazon Science internship include; - All of our internships offer a competitive salary - Interns are paired with an experienced manager and mentor(s) - Interns get invited to different intern program or office events - Interns can build their professional and personal network with other Amazon Scientists About the team We're hiring interns for multiple teams in Israel, including but not limited to; • Prime Video Sports — Build innovative sports experiences for Prime Video, spanning computer vision, 3D simulation, and personalized content recommendations. • Personalization — Leverage LLMs, NLP, and recommender systems to match customers with products that align with their passions and shopping preferences. • Agentic AI — Build next-generation agentic AI systems that automate real-world knowledge work, spanning retrieval-augmented generation, multi-agent workflows, long-term memory and personalization, knowledge-graph construction, and agent evaluation. • DS3 Textract — Develop multimodal generative AI algorithms that pioneer state-of-the-art document understanding solutions impacting millions of customers. You'll submit a single application and we'll match you with science teams best aligned with your research interests. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and your application stays active until we find a team match or confirm there are no matches available. Start dates are available throughout the year. Some teams offer full-time internships (3–6 months) while others offer part-time positions (50–60%, 8–12 months) — your recruiter will confirm the format during team matching. We offer science internships in multiple locations across the EMEA region and you can indicate your interest in all these locations by applying here (Austria, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, UAE, and UK). Please note we do not offer remote internships.




        

        

        

        
    


    



                    

                
                    

                        

    

    

        
            

                Applied Scientist, Worldwide Installments
            

        

        

            
                
                    

                
            

            

            

            

            
                
US, VA, Arlington

            
        


        
    
WW Installments is one of the fastest growing businesses within Amazon and we are looking for an Applied Scientist to join the team. This group has been entrusted with a massive charter that will impact every customer that visits Amazon.com. We are building the next generation of features and payment products that maximize customer enablement in a simple, transparent, and customer obsessed way. Through these products, we will deliver value directly to Amazon customers improving the shopping experience for hundreds of millions of customers worldwide. Our mission is to delight our customers by building payment experiences and financial services that are trusted, valued, and easy to use from anywhere in any way. As an Applied Scientist within WW Installments, you will be responsible for building machine learning models and pipelines with direct customer impact. These models represent a core capability for WW Installments and businesses across Amazon. Your work will directly impact customers by influencing how they interact with financing options to make purchases. You will work across functions including data engineering, software development, and business to induce data driven decisions at every level of the organization. Key job responsibilities This role will be responsible for: • Developing production machine learning models and pipelines for the WW Installments Fraud Detection team that directly impact customers. • Apply expertise in machine learning to develop large-scale production systems that are deployed across Amazon businesses. • Identify business opportunities, define and execute modeling approach, then deliver outcomes to various Amazon businesses with an Amazon-wide perspective for solutions. • Lead the implementation of production ML from a scientific perspective including identifying consumer financial credit and fraud risks, key milestones, and paths to mitigate risks. • Identifying new opportunities to influence business strategy and product vision using data science and machine learning. • Continually improve the WW Installments ML roadmap automating and simplifying whenever possible. • Coordinate support across engineers, scientists, and stakeholders to deliver ML pipelines, analytics projects, and build proof of concept applications. • Work through significant business and technical ambiguity delivering on analytics roadmap across the team with autonomy.




        

        

        

        
    


    



                    

                
                    

                        

    

    

        
            

                Principal Applied Scientist, AWS Data Center Services
            

        

        

            
                
                    

                
            

            

            

            

            
                
US, WA, Seattle

            
        


        
    
Application deadline: Oct 27, 2026 The AWS Data Center Services team is hiring a Principal Applied Scientist to innovate and advance the science behind solutions to problems in the rapidly growing AWS data center space. These problems range from bespoke computer vision models to support our physical infrastructure functions such as repair activities, to increasing the certainty of decisions made by our generative AI service without sacrificing latency or performance. For example, when a data center technician is triaging a critical electrical event at 2am and alarms cascade in seconds, our AI service has to cross-reference topology, live readings, maintenance history, and design documents within minutes - work that today takes an order of magnitude more time and intervention from a senior engineer. As a Principal Applied Scientist, you will work backwards from these problems and partner with software development teams to deliver solutions. You will work on problems ranging from selecting, training and evolving computer vision models for targeted activities on AWS infrastructure inside our data centers; to building smart retrieval algorithms, reduce model hallucination on safety-critical outcomes, continually improve latency and performance, and ensure our generative AI service's knowledgeable stays current and the service is constantly getting smarter beyond just knowledge retrieval. A day in the life You start the morning reviewing traces from last night’s incident triage. The agent correctly walked the topology to the upstream breaker but missed a recent maintenance change that was the real cause — so you design an experiment: does feeding work-order history into the traversal improve accuracy? You test it against historical incident data. Mid-morning, you review verification traces and catch the agent missing a spec deep in a submittal. After lunch, a field engineer walks you through manually cross-referencing five systems during an incident and you turn their scenario into a new benchmark. In the afternoon, you prototype cross-discipline reasoning: when a cascade spans electrical and cooling, can the lead agent delegate scoped investigations and still hold one coherent hypothesis? You publish results and draft a paper. You own the full lifecycle — research through production deployment. About the team Data Center Services is part of AWS Infrastructure Services that owns the design, planning, delivery, and operation of all AWS global infrastructure. In other words, we’re the people who keep the cloud running. We support all AWS data centers and all of the servers, storage, networking, power, and cooling equipment that ensure our customers have continual access to the innovation they rely on. We work on the most challenging problems, with thousands of variables impacting the supply chain - and we’re looking for talented people who want to help. You’ll join a diverse team of software, hardware, and network engineers, supply chain specialists, security experts, operations managers, and other vital roles. You’ll collaborate with people across AWS to help us deliver the highest standards for safety and security while providing seemingly infinite capacity at the lowest possible cost for our customers. And you’ll experience an inclusive culture that welcomes bold ideas and empowers you to own them to completion.




        

        

        

        
    


    



                    

                
            

        

    

    

        See more jobs
    






        




    

        
            
        
        

            

                
                    

                        

                    

                
            

            
                

                    

                        

  

      
          

              
                  
    
        View from space of a connected network around planet Earth representing the Internet of Things.
    

              
          

      

      

        

          
              
Get more from Amazon Science

          

          
    
Subscribe to our newsletter



        

        
          
        
      

  



                    

                

            
        

    


    

        

        
            
Amazon.com | Conditions of Use | Privacy | © 1996-2026 Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates

        
        
            

    
Social