Senior Applied Scientist, Fauna

Amazon • New York, NY

5d

About The Position

We are seeking an Applied Scientist to lead the development of evaluation
frameworks and data collection protocols for robotic capabilities. In this role,
you will focus on designing how we measure, stress-test, and improve robot
behavior across a wide range of real-world tasks. Your work will play a critical
role in shaping how policies are validated and how high-quality datasets are
generated to accelerate system performance.
You will operate at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and
human-in-the-loop systems, building the infrastructure and methodologies that
connect teleoperation, evaluation, and learning. This includes developing
evaluation policies, defining task structures, and contributing to
operator-facing interfaces that enable scalable and reliable data collection.
The ideal candidate is highly experimental, systems-oriented, and comfortable
working across software, robotics, and data pipelines, with a strong focus on
turning ambiguous capability goals into measurable and actionable evaluation
systems.

Requirements

• PhD, or Master's degree and 6+ years of applied research experience
• 3+ years of industry or academic research experience
• Experience with any programming language such as Python, Java, C++
• 5+ years of building machine learning models or developing algorithms for business application experience
• Experience leading technical initiatives and key deliverables
• Experience in patents or publication at top-tier conferences
• Demonstrated expertise in deep learning and model development
• Strong experience with robotics systems, control, or embodied AI
• Experience designing evaluation methodologies, benchmarks, or experimental frameworks for large-scale ML models or robotic systems
• Familiarity with teleoperation systems, simulation environments, or human-in-the-loop data collection

Nice To Haves

• Experience managing and deploying ML products
• Experience in patents or publications at top-tier peer-reviewed conferences or journals
• Experience leading research initiatives in robotics or foundation models

Responsibilities

• Design and implement evaluation frameworks to measure robot capabilities across structured tasks, edge cases, and real-world scenarios
• Develop task definitions, success criteria, and benchmarking methodologies that enable consistent and reproducible evaluation of policies
• Create and refine data collection protocols that generate high-quality, task-relevant datasets aligned with model development needs
• Build and iterate on teleoperation workflows and operator interfaces to support efficient, reliable, and scalable data collection
• Analyze evaluation results and collected data to identify performance gaps, failure modes, and opportunities for targeted data collection
• Collaborate with engineering teams to integrate evaluation tooling, logging systems, and data pipelines into the broader robotics stack
• Stay current with advances in robotics, evaluation methodologies, and human-in-the-loop learning to continuously improve internal approaches
• Lead technical projects from conception through production deployment
• Mentor junior scientists and engineers

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
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree