Member of Technical Staff - Firmware Engineer, Robotics, Frontier AI & Robotics

Amazon • San Francisco, CA

22h

About The Position

Join Amazon's Frontier AI & Robotics team and help shape the future of intelligent robotic systems from the inside out. As a Member of Technical Staff - Firmware Engineer, Electronics, you will develop the low-level firmware that brings our in-house robotic actuators to life—writing the embedded code that bridges sophisticated hardware and the high-level AI control systems that power our next-generation robots. Your work will directly enable our robots to see, reason, and act in real-world warehouse environments, making you a critical contributor to one of the most ambitious robotics programs in the world.

Requirements

• Experience in developing functional specifications, design verification plans and functional test procedures
• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Embedded Systems, or a related technical field
• 5+ years of professional embedded firmware development experience, with demonstrated expertise in real-time control systems for electromechanical or power electronics hardware
• Proficiency in C and/or C++ for embedded/real-time systems, with experience writing firmware for microcontrollers or DSPs in resource-constrained environments
• Hands-on experience developing motor control firmware, including field-oriented control (FOC), BLDC or PMSM motor commutation, and closed-loop current, speed, or position control
• Experience with hardware communication protocols relevant to actuator systems (CAN, SPI, I2C, UART, EtherCAT, or similar) and interfacing firmware with motor drivers, encoders, and analog sensors
• Demonstrated ability to debug firmware and hardware issues using tools such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and in-circuit debuggers in a hands-on lab environment

Nice To Haves

• Experience developing actuator firmware for robotic systems, collaborative robots, or high-performance motion control platforms
• Familiarity with proprioceptive sensing and torque estimation techniques in robots, including integration of force/torque sensors or current-based torque estimation in firmware
• Experience with EtherCAT or other real-time industrial fieldbus protocols for multi-axis robotic drive coordination
• Knowledge of functional safety standards (ISO 26262, IEC 61508) as applied to motor drive firmware and embedded safety monitoring logic
• Experience working in cross-functional hardware-software teams in fast-paced robotics, aerospace, or advanced electromechanical systems environments
• Familiarity with hardware bring-up workflows and DFT (design for test) practices for custom motor drive electronics

Responsibilities

• Develop, test, and optimize embedded firmware for custom in-house robotic actuators, including motor control algorithms (FOC, commutation, current/torque/speed/position loops) running on microcontrollers and DSPs
• Design and implement real-time firmware for actuator state estimation, fault detection, and protection logic, ensuring robust and safe operation across all actuator variants deployed in FAR's robotic systems
• Collaborate with electronics engineers and motor design engineers to define firmware requirements, hardware interfaces (SPI, I2C, CAN, EtherCAT, RS-485), and actuator bring-up procedures for new hardware revisions
• Develop and maintain firmware for field-oriented control (FOC) and sensored/sensorless motor commutation, including tuning current regulators, velocity controllers, and position controllers for high-performance robots
• Build and maintain firmware test frameworks and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test environments to validate firmware behavior across actuator operating conditions, edge cases, and failure modes
• Partner with controls engineers and AI researchers to ensure firmware-level interfaces support high-bandwidth, low-latency communication required by whole-body control and motion planning algorithms
• Contribute to actuator firmware architecture decisions, define software-hardware interface standards, and maintain firmware documentation and version control practices to enable scalable multi-actuator development
• Support rapid hardware bring-up and debugging of new actuator prototypes, leveraging oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and custom diagnostic tools to characterize and validate firmware behavior on novel hardware

Benefits

• Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

What This Job Offers

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