Senior Applied Scientist, Amazon Robotics - Vulcan Stow
About The Position
Amazon Robotics Vulcan is a robotic stowing system that uses a robot arm with a custom end-of-arm tool to place customer items into fulfillment center storage bins, alongside human associates. The Vulcan Motion team owns the motion stack that makes every interaction between the robot and the bin safe, fast, and predictable, including real-time force-controlled manipulation, motion planning for insert and retract behaviors, compliant contact behaviors, and the safety envelope around all of it. This is a hands-on technical leadership role where you will write production C++ and Python, review code, and hold the technical bar on real-time control design selections. You will also lead collaborations between our team and external partner teams in vision, hardware, and operations.
Requirements
- PhD, or Master's degree and 6+ years of applied research experience
- Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
- 5+ years of experience designing and deploying motion controllers for robotic manipulators in industrial, collaborative, or research settings (e.g., warehouse robotics, exoskeletons, home robots, aerospace, or equivalent)
- Hands-on experience with force- and torque-feedback control, admittance control, or compliant manipulation on physical hardware
- Experience with real-time, high-rate control systems
Nice To Haves
- Experience deploying and supporting complex robotic systems at scale
- Sim-to-real deployment experience using physics simulators such as MuJoCo, Isaac Sim, or Gazebo
- Experience applying high-performance motion planning and controls to third-party robot arms
- Publications at relevant conferences such as IROS, ICRA, RSS, CoRL, ROMAN, CASE, Humanoids, or in journals such as T-RO, RA-L, IJRR on contact-based manipulation, motion planning, force control, or sim-to-real transfer
Responsibilities
- Research, propose, architect, and deliver complex features such as unified contact-control frameworks, robot-arm integration roadmaps, functional-safety envelopes, and motion recovery architectures.
- Bring recent scientific advances in force control, compliant manipulation, and sim-to-real transfer into production.
- Lead significant architectural and strategic initiatives together with more junior teammates.
- Work across cross-disciplinary teams (hardware, safety, operations, vendor engineering) to deliver novel, synergistic features and capabilities.
- Stay current with recent advances in robotics control, manipulation, and industrial automation.
- Own the technical bar on real-time control design decisions and serve as the senior technical interface to external robot-arm engineering teams.
Benefits
- Medical, Dental, and Vision Coverage
- Maternity and Parental Leave Options
- Paid Time Off (PTO)
- 401(k) Plan
- sign-on payments
- restricted stock units (RSUs)
- 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
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
