Sr. SDE - Robotics and Physics Simulation, Frontier AI Robotics

Amazon • San Francisco, CA

6d

About The Position

In this role, you will act as the primary specialist for physics engine
internals and dynamics, developing high-fidelity, vectorized simulation
environments for robotics locomotion, navigation, and interaction/manipulation.
You will collaborate with hardware engineers to validate robot models and
partner with research scientists to ensure numerical stability and physical
accuracy for Sim2Real transfer. Your work focuses on tuning solvers, optimizing
collision dynamics, and performing system identification to enable the training
of robust robot control policies for complex, physical interactions.

At Frontier AI & Robotics (FAR), we're not just advancing robotics – we're
reimagining it from the ground up. Our team is building the future of
intelligent robotics through frontier 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

• 3+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
• 3+ years of non-internship design or architecture (design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems experience
• Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field
• 1+ years Software engineering experience in robotics or physics simulation, with a strong understanding of rigid body dynamics and numerical integration
• Experience using standard physics engines (e.g., MuJoCo, PhysX, Bullet, Havok)

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent preferred
• Deep understanding of contact dynamics, collision detection algorithms, and numerical solvers
• Experience with robotics system identification (SysID) and model validation against real hardware
• Experience with GPU-accelerated simulation frameworks (e.g., Isaac Gym/Lab, Mujoco Warp)
• Familiarity with tensor frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow) for writing vectorized code and interfacing with learning pipelines
• A passion for robotics and a desire to build intelligent systems that can positively impact the world.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain the shared simulation software framework, specifically owning the physics integration, robot state management, and control layers
• Develop and optimize parallelized (vectorized) physics environments for high-throughput reinforcement learning (e.g., Isaac Lab, MuJoCo)
• Tune physics engine parameters (solvers, friction, restitution) to support complex contact-rich scenarios required for dexterous manipulation and agile locomotion.
• Implement and validate complex robot models (URDF/MJCF) involving precise actuator and sensor modeling
• Collaborate with robot engineers and scientists to perform System Identification (SysID) to minimize the Sim2Real gap

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