Sr. Economist, Pricing Science

Amazon.com Inc

Seattle, WA

JOB DETAILS
SKILLS
Analysis Skills, Business Case, Concrete, Cross-Functional, Customer/Consumer Behavior, Develop Methodologies, Documentation, Economics, Finance, LifeTime Value (LTV), Mentoring, Metrics, Model Validation, Operating Systems, Pricing, Product Pricing, Scrum Project Management and Software Development, Technical Leadership, Use Cases
LOCATION
Seattle, WA
POSTED
30+ days ago

Estimating the long-run customer value of a pricing decision is genuinely hard. The causal effects are delayed, noisy, and confounded by factors that standard experiment analysis wasn"t designed to handle. Most pricing teams default to short-run metrics not because they don"t care about long-run outcomes, but because measuring them rigorously is an unsolved problem.

P2OS is building the science to solve it. We"re hiring a Sr. Economist to own that work defining how we estimate customer lifetime value in a pricing context, building the identification strategies that make those estimates credible, and translating outputs into something pricing teams can use to make better decisions. The role sits at the intersection of econometric methodology and production-quality analysis, and requires someone who can operate independently in both.

As science lead, you"ll own the LTV methodology domain, develop the economists and scientists on your scrum, and be the internal authority on causal inference for pricing across P2OS and partner teams.

Key job responsibilities

  • Own the end-to-end LTV methodology for pricing identification strategy, modeling choices, validation approach, and business use cases and drive adoption across pricing contexts
  • Deliver high-stakes analyses connecting LTV estimates to a concrete pricing decision and strategy change at VP+ level
  • Apply advanced causal methods to live pricing problems; document approaches so the team can build on and extend them.
  • Provide causal inference guidance on pricing experiment questions as they arise being the methodology resource when experiments generate LTV-relevant questions
  • Serve as cross-team economic advisor to Finance, Customer Behavior, and Demand Science on LTV assumptions and causal identification
  • Actively mentor junior scientists, earn trust of cross-functional tech and product partners.

A day in the life

In a typical day, you"ll move between methodology work and stakeholder-facing analysis.

  • On the science side, that means reviewing identification assumptions with the Causal AS, validating estimation choices for the LTV framework, and documenting methodology decisions in ways that non-economists can act on.
  • On the applied side, you"ll be in rooms with Finance, Pricing PMs, and other science teams: aligning on LTV definitions, resolving disagreements between competing metrics, and translating causal findings into recommendations that land in strategy reviews.
  • As tech lead, you need to work to develop the economists and scientists on your scrum: structured reviews, identification strategy feedback, and raising the quality of analyses before they reach stakeholders.

The mix shifts, but the through-line is to progress the LTV methodology from open questions to shipped frameworks, and making sure the team"s causal work is rigorous enough to hold up when it counts.

About the team

P2Optimization Science (P2OS) is responsible for the ML models and analytical frameworks that drive pricing decisions at scale. The team spans demand lift modeling, pricing error detection, customer lifetime value, and experimentation. Our small team of specialized applied scientists and economists works closely alongside engineers, and pricing product managers.

About the Company

A

Amazon.com Inc

At Amazon, we don’t wait for the next big idea to present itself. We envision the shape of impossible things and then we boldly make them reality. So far, this mindset has helped us achieve some incredible things. Let’s build new systems, challenge the status quo, and design the world we want to live in. We believe the work you do here will be the best work of your life.

Wherever you are in your career exploration, Amazon likely has an opportunity for you. Our research scientists and engineers shape the future of natural language understanding with Alexa. Fulfillment center associates around the globe send customer orders from our warehouses to doorsteps. Product managers set feature requirements, strategy, and marketing messages for brand new customer experiences. And as we grow, we’ll add jobs that haven’t been invented yet.

It’s Always Day 1
At Amazon, it’s always “Day 1.” Now, what does this mean and why does it matter? It means that our approach remains the same as it was on Amazon’s very first day – to make smart, fast decisions, stay nimble, invent, and stay focused on delighting our customers. In our 2016 shareholder letter, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos shared his thoughts on how to keep up a Day 1 company mindset. “Staying in Day 1 requires you to experiment patiently, accept failures, plant seeds, protect saplings, and double down when you see customer delight,” he wrote. “A customer-obsessed culture best creates the conditions where all of that can happen.” You can read the full letter here

Our Leadership Principles
Our Leadership Principles help us keep a Day 1 mentality. They aren’t just a pretty inspirational wall hanging. Amazonians use them, every day, whether they’re discussing ideas for new projects, deciding on the best solution for a customer’s problem, or interviewing candidates. To read through our Leadership Principles from Customer Obsession to Bias for Action, visit https://www.amazon.jobs/principles
COMPANY SIZE
10,000 employees or more
INDUSTRY
Retail
FOUNDED
1994
WEBSITE
http://Amazon.com/militaryroles