Animation Engineer, Fauna

Amazon • New York, NY

2d

About The Position

We are seeking a Robot Animation Engineer to design, implement, and optimize
advanced animation systems for robots. In this role, you will build
production-quality motion algorithms and animation tools to create expressive
and functional movements for real-world robotic platforms. Ideal candidates will
have experience developing control systems for virtual characters in real-time,
interactive environments such as video game character controllers Your work will
be critical in advancing the field of robotics by enabling robots to interact
joyfully and competently with their environments and safely around people.
We encourage you to share a portfolio with your application that highlights your
experience. This might include character controllers you've developed for video
games or character animation research from your academic work.

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.

Requirements

• 3+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
• Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field
• Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
• Experience with motion design
• Experience with simulation and 3D modeling software
• Experience developing and producing animated series specifically
• Experience with hardware/software integration and real-time systems
• Experience working with version control systems

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree in Engineering, Technology, Science, Operations Research, Robotics, Mathematics, or related fields, or PhD
• Experience with Unreal engine, or experience with Unity, Unreal, CryEngine, Lumberyard or proprietary 3D game engine, or industry-equivalent technology (3D animation, simulation, etc)
• Experience developing and testing mechanical robotics equipment
• Experience leveraging motion capture data to build kinematic controllers
• Proficiency with rigging systems and procedural animation techniques
• Familiarity with reinforcement learning, deep learning, or AI-driven motion generation for characters or robots
• Contributions to open-source animation or robotics projects
• Experience shipping animation systems in production environments (games, film, or robotics)

Responsibilities

• Design and implement production-quality algorithms and systems for generating natural, aesthetically -pleasing motions for robots, including locomotion and object manipulation
• Build and maintain scalable animation pipelines and tools that integrate seamlessly with robotic platforms, ensuring alignment with hardware constraints and performance requirements
• Optimize animation systems for real-time performance, scalability, and reliability in production robot deployments
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including robotics engineers, perception engineers, and hardware teams to deliver integrated solutions
• Stay current with advancements in robotics, animation technology, and AI, applying cutting-edge techniques to improve robotic motion and interactivity
• Write clean, maintainable, and well-documented code following software engineering best practices

Benefits

• 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
• parental leave

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level