Sr. Applied Scientist, Frontier AI & Robotics (FAR)

Amazon•San Francisco, CA

12d

About The Position

Join the next revolution in robotics at Amazon's Frontier AI & Robotics team. As a Senior Applied Scientist, you'll spearhead the development of breakthrough foundation models and full-stack robotics systems that enable robots to perceive, understand, and interact with the world in unprecedented ways. You'll drive technical excellence in areas such as locomotion, manipulation, sim2real transfer, multi-modal and multi-task robot learning, designing novel frameworks that bridge the gap between research and real-world deployment at Amazon scale. In this role, you'll combine hands-on technical work with scientific leadership, ensuring your team delivers robust solutions for dynamic real-world environments. You'll leverage Amazon's vast computational resources to tackle ambitious problems in areas like very large multi-modal robotic foundation models and efficient, promptable model architectures that can scale across diverse robotic applications. At Frontier AI & Robotics, we're not just advancing robotics – we're reimagining it from the ground up. Our team is building the future of intelligent robotics through innovative foundation models and end-to-end learned systems. We tackle some of the most challenging problems in AI and robotics, from developing sophisticated perception systems to creating adaptive manipulation strategies that work in complex, real-world scenarios. What sets us apart is our unique combination of ambitious research vision and practical impact. We leverage Amazon's massive computational infrastructure and rich real-world datasets to train and deploy state-of-the-art foundation models. Our work spans the full spectrum of robotics intelligence – from multimodal perception using images, videos, and sensor data, to sophisticated manipulation strategies that can handle diverse real-world scenarios. We're building systems that don't just work in the lab, but scale to meet the demands of Amazon's global operations. Join us if you're excited about pushing the boundaries of what's possible in robotics, working with world-class researchers, and seeing your innovations deployed at unprecedented scale.

Requirements

PhD, or Master's degree and 6+ years of applied research experience
3+ years of industry or academic research experience in ME, EE, CS, CE, or related field
Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
Experience with hardware design, low-level control, state estimation, system identification, or complex electrical systems
Strong publication record at top-tier conferences (RSS, CoRL, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV, ICRA, IROS)
Strong track record of leading technical projects
Experience mentoring junior scientists/engineers
Demonstrated expertise in deep learning and robotics system development

Nice To Haves

History of impactful first-author publications at major robotics and ML conferences
Experience leading research initiatives in full-stack robotics or foundation models
Track record of successful production robotics deployments
Experience with large-scale distributed systems
History of technical leadership and team mentorship
Experience bridging research with practical engineering implementation in robotics systems
Extensive programming skills in Python and PyTorch/JAX

Responsibilities

Lead technical initiatives across the robotics stack, driving breakthrough approaches through hands-on research and development in areas including robot co-design, dexterous manipulation mechanisms, innovative actuation strategies, state estimation, low-level control, system identification, reinforcement learning, and sim-to-real transfer, as well as foundation models for perception and manipulation
Guide technical direction for full-stack robotics projects from conceptualization through deployment, taking a system-level approach that integrates hardware considerations with algorithmic development
Develop and optimize control algorithms and sensing pipelines that enable robust performance in production environments
Mentor fellow scientists while maintaining strong individual technical contributions
Collaborate with platform and hardware teams to ensure seamless integration across the entire robotics stack
Influence technical decisions and implementation strategies within your area of focus
Design and implement innovative systems and algorithms, working hands-on with our extensive infrastructure to prototype and evaluate at scale
Guide fellow scientists in solving complex technical challenges across the full robotics stack
Lead focused technical initiatives from conception through deployment, ensuring successful integration with production systems
Drive technical discussions within your team and with key stakeholders
Conduct experiments and prototype new ideas using our massive compute cluster and extensive robotics infrastructure
Mentor team members while maintaining significant hands-on contribution to technical solutions