Applied Scientist, Amazon Robotics

Amazon.com Services LLC; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

Dental coverage

Vision coverage

Maternity leave

Parental leave

Paid time off

401(k) plan

Job summary

Amazon Robotics is seeking an exceptional Applied Scientist to join the Foundation Models and Agentic AI team. You will shape the future of robotics by applying large vision-language-action models, planning, and reinforcement learning to real-world problems.

The role emphasizes model development, data management, experimentation, and collaboration with cross-functional teams to advance robotics research from theory to deployment.

Qualifications

• PhD or Master’s degree required or equivalent
• Experience building machine learning models for business or research applications
• Publications or patents in top-tier venues is a plus

Responsibilities

• Design and implement model architectures, train and fine-tune foundation models on diverse datasets.
• Prepare training data, enforce data governance and build reusable data pipelines.
• Design experiments, validate performance on the simulator and the embodiment, iteratively improve models.
• Write clean, documented code, contribute to training infrastructure and APIs.
• Stay current with foundation models and robotics research; document findings and discoveries.
• Collaborate with senior scientists and engineers; support integration with robotics hardware teams.

Skills

PhD or Master’s level

Machine learning models

Deep learning

Computer vision

Human-robot interaction

Algorithms implementation

Java

C++

Python

Research publications

Education

PhD or Master’s degree

Job description

Amazon Robotics is seeking an exceptional Applied Scientist to join our Foundation Models and Agentic AI team. This role presents an opportunity to shape the future of robotics through innovative applications of large vision-language-action (VLA) models, reasoning and task planning models, and reinforcement learning.

At Amazon Robotics, we leverage advanced robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to solve complex operational challenges at unprecedented scale. Our fleet of robots operates across hundreds of facilities worldwide, working in sophisticated coordination to fulfill our mission of customer excellence.

We are pioneering the development of robotics foundation models that:

• Enable unprecedented generalization across diverse tasks
• Integrate multi-modal learning capabilities (visual, depth, force, tactile, linguistic)
• Accelerate policy skill acquisition through imitation learning and reinforcement learning
• Enhance robotic perception and environmental understanding
• Streamline development processes through reusable capabilities

The ideal candidate will contribute to research that bridges the gap between theoretical advancement and practical implementation in robotics. You will be part of a team that's revolutionizing how robots learn, adapt, and interact with their environment.

Join us in building the next generation of intelligent robotics systems that will transform the future of automation and human-robot collaboration.

Key job responsibilities

As an Applied Scientist in the Applied AI and Robotics Foundations Model team, you will:

• Model Development and Training: Designing and implementing the model architectures, training and fine tuning the foundation models using various datasets, and optimize the model performance through iterative experiments
• Data Management: Process and prepare training data, including data governance, provenance tracking, data quality checks and creating reusable data pipelines.
• Experimentation and Validation: Design and execute experiments to test model capabilities on the simulator and on the embodiment, validate performance across different scenarios, create a baseline and iteratively improve model performance.
• Code Development: Write clean, maintainable, well commented and documented code, contribute to training infrastructure, create tools for model evaluation and testing, and implement necessary APIs
• Research: Stay current with latest developments in foundation models and robotics, assist in literature reviews and research documentation, prepare technical reports and presentations, and contribute to research discussions and brainstorming sessions.
• Collaboration: Work closely with senior scientists, engineers, and leaders across multiple teams, participate in knowledge sharing, support integration efforts with robotics hardware teams, and help document best practices and methodologies.

A day in the life

Amazon offers a full range of benefits that support you and eligible family members, including domestic partners and their children. Benefits can vary by location, the number of regularly scheduled hours you work, length of employment, and job status such as seasonal or temporary employment.

The benefits that generally apply to regular, full-time employees include:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Coverage
• Maternity and Parental Leave Options
• Paid Time Off (PTO)
• 401(k) Plan

About the team

Are you inspired by invention? Is problem solving through teamwork in your DNA? Do you like the idea of seeing how your work impacts the bigger picture? Answer yes to any of these and you'll fit right in here at Amazon Robotics. We are a smart, collaborative team of enthusiastic doers that work passionately to apply innovative advances in robotics and software to solve real-world challenges that will transform our customers' experiences in ways we can't even image yet. We invent new improvements every day. We are Amazon Robotics and we will give you the tools and support you need to invent with us in ways that are rewarding, fulfilling and fun.

Basic Qualifications

• PhD, or Master's degree and 4+ years of building machine learning models or developing algorithms for business application experience
• 2+ years of deep learning, computer vision, human robotic interaction, algorithms implementation experience
• Experience in patents or publications at top-tier peer-reviewed conferences or journals
• Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
• Experience in any of the following areas: algorithms and data structures, parsing, numerical optimization, data mining, parallel and distributed computing, high-performance computi