Sr. Applied Scientist, PRG (Personal Robotics Group)

Amazon • Sunnyvale, CA

12d

About The Position

Join the Personal Robotics Group at Amazon, where you'll help pioneer
intelligent robotic products that deliver meaningful customer experiences. As a
Senior Applied Scientist, you'll lead the development of advanced control
systems that enable robots to operate naturally, safely, and intelligently in
complex real-world environments. You'll drive technical excellence in areas such
as RL-based locomotion policies, whole-body manipulation, sim-to-real transfer,
vision-aided control, and safe human-robot interaction.
In this role, you'll combine hands-on technical work with scientific leadership,
developing robust control solutions that enable robots to perform complex
loco-manipulation tasks in dynamic environments. You'll leverage Amazon's
computational resources and robotics infrastructure to tackle ambitious robotics
problems.

The Personal Robotics Group is pioneering intelligent robotic products that
deliver meaningful customer experiences. We're building the next generation of
robotic systems that will redefine how customers interact with technology. This
is a unique opportunity to shape the future of personal robotics working with
world-class teams pushing the boundaries of what's possible in robotic
manipulation, locomotion, and human-robot interaction.
Join us if you’re passionate about creating the future of personal robotics,
solving complex challenges at the intersection of hardware and software, and
seeing your innovation deliver transformative customer experiences.

Requirements

• PhD, or Master's degree and 6+ years of applied research experience
• 3+ years of industry or academic research experience
• Strong publication record at major Robotics/ML/AI conferences (e.g., RSS, CoRL, ICRA, IROS, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR)
• Experience with simulation environments for robot learning (Isaac Gym/Lab, MuJoCo, or similar)
• Experience programming in Python, C++,or related language
• Experience with sim-to-real transfer for robotic systems
• Demonstrated track record of leading technical projects
• Experience mentoring junior scientists/engineers

Nice To Haves

• History of impactful first-author publications at major conferences
• Experience with large-scale distributed training for RL
• History of technical leadership and cross-functional collaboration
• Experience bridging research with practical engineering implementation in robotics systems
• Extensive programming skills in Python and PyTorch/JAX

Responsibilities

• Lead technical initiatives in whole-body control and locomotion, driving breakthrough approaches through hands-on research and development in areas including policy learning, natural motion generation, vision-aided locomotion, and loco-manipulation
• Design and implement novel RL architectures and training paradigms for robust whole-body control that enables complex tasks across diverse scenarios
• Develop sim-to-real transfer techniques that enable policies trained in simulation to perform reliably on physical hardware
• Guide technical direction for locomotion and control projects from research through deployment, ensuring robust performance in real-world environments
• Collaborate with navigation, manipulation, and hardware teams to ensure seamless integration of whole-body control with perception and planning systems
• Mentor fellow scientists and engineers while maintaining strong individual technical contributions
• Establish benchmarks and evaluation frameworks for measuring locomotion and whole-body control performance across simulation and on-device testing

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