Applied Scientist, Fauna Robotics

Amazon Science; Massachusetts; On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Sign-on payments

Restricted stock units (RSUs)

Health insurance

401(k) matching

Parental leave

Job summary

Fauna Robotics, a division within Amazon, is seeking an Applied Scientist to push state-of-the-art robotics research and deployment. You will drive advances in perception, manipulation, sim2real transfer, reinforcement learning, and multi-task learning, bridging research and real-world robotics deployments.

You will design experiments, mentor scientists, and collaborate with software engineers to scale models for home-environment robots.

Qualifications

• 3+ years building models for business applications.
• Publications or patents in top-tier conferences/journals.
• Programming experience in Java, C++, Python or related language.
• PhD, or Master's + 3+ years applied research experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead initiatives in robotics foundation models, RL, and manipulation.
• Design experiments to probe model limitations and develop superior techniques.
• Develop novel deep learning architectures for robotic understanding and capabilities.
• Mentor scientists while maintaining strong individual technical contributions.
• Collaborate with engineering to optimize and scale models for real-world use.
• Influence technical decisions and strategies within your focus area.
• Communicate complex work to non-technical audiences.
• Operate with minimal guidance, proactivity, and handling evolving goals.

Skills

Model building for business apps

Publications/patents

Programming: Java, C++, Python

Applied research experience

Education

PhD

Master's degree + 3+ years applied research

Job description

Applied Scientist, Fauna Robotics

Job ID: 10597214 | Amazon.com Services LLC

Description

Robots are about to step out of the movies and into our homes. If you're excited about this robotics revolution, come join Amazon's Fauna Robotics. As an Applied Scientist in this org, you'll push the state-of-the-art techniques in Robotics. You'll drive technical excellence in areas such as perception, manipulation, sim2real transfer, reinforcement learning and multi-task learning, designing novel algorithms that bridge the gap between research and real-world deployment. In this role, you will integrate hands‑on technical expertise with scientific leadership, ensuring your team delivers robust solutions for dynamic real-world environments. While staying updated with the latest advancements in robotics research, you will leverage your experience and expertise to guide the team towards the most promising direction. Collaborating with a talented group of software engineers and scientists, you will bring your ideas to fruition. Deploying robots in home environments requires you to anticipate challenges not encountered in structured settings like warehouses. Additionally, consumer‑grade sensors and actuators necessitate working around their limitations, requiring out‑of‑the‑box innovative ideas. As such, you are someone who truly enjoys thinking about problems using first principles at a holistic and systems level to address the aforementioned challenges.

Key job responsibilities

• Lead technical initiatives in areas such as robotics foundation models, reinforcement learning and manipulation
• Design experiments to identify the limitations of current state‑of‑the‑art models and developing new models or techniques that can surpass these models
• Design and implement novel deep learning architectures that push the boundaries of what robots can understand and accomplish
• Mentor fellow scientists while maintaining strong individual technical contributions
• Collaborate with engineering teams to optimize and scale models for real‑world applications
• Influence technical decisions and implementation strategies within your area of focus
• Experienced in communicating complex technical work to a non‑technical audience
• The ability to work with minimal guidance, be proactive and to handle ambiguity and the challenge of quickly evolving goals

About the team

Fauna Robotics, an Amazon company, is building capable, safe, and genuinely delightful robots for everyday life. Our goal is simple: make robots people actually want to live and interact with in everyday human spaces. We believe that future won’t arrive until building for robotics becomes far more accessible. Today, too much effort is spent reinventing the fundamentals. We’re changing that by developing tightly integrated hardware and software systems that make it faster, safer, and more intuitive to create real‑world robotic products. Our work spans the full stack: mechanical design, control systems, dynamic modeling, and intelligent software. The focus is not just functionality, but experience. We’re building robots that feel responsive, expressive, and genuinely useful. At Fauna, you’ll work at the frontier of this space, helping define how robots move, manipulate, and interact with people in natural environments. It’s an opportunity to solve hard problems across hardware and software with a team focused on making robotics accessible and joyful to build. If you care about making robotics real for everyone and building systems that are as delightful as they are capable, we’re interested in hearing from you.

Basic Qualifications

• 3+ years of building models for business application experience
• Experience in patents or publications at top‑tier peer‑reviewed conferences or journals
• Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
• PhD, or Master's degree and 3+ years of applied research experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Hand‑on experience of deploying Deep Learning models on robots
• Experience in developing Vision Language Action (VLA) models and/or Reinforcement learning for robot manipulation

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign‑on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including 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, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.

Job details

• USA, CA, Sunnyvale
• Amazon Robotics
• Applied Science