Navigation Scientist for Autonomous Robotics & AI

Socket.dev; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 172,000 - 222,000; Full time

Job summary

Amazon is seeking a Scientist in Robot Navigation to architect and deliver intelligent, safe, scalable navigation systems for robotic platforms. You will blend learning-based planning with principled MPC-based trajectory planning, and translate research into production-grade deployments.

You will lead research on perception, navigation, and multi-domain coordination, collaborating with teams across robotics, software, and product management to drive impact in dynamic environments.

Qualifications

• Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language.
• PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Controls, or a related field.
• 2+ years of experience in robot navigation, motion planning, or autonomous systems.
• Deep expertise in learning-based approaches to navigation (e.g., imitation learning, reinforcement learning, neural motion planning, diffusion-based policies).
• Strong experience with Model Predictive Control (MPC) and optimization-based planning (PyTorch, JAX, or equivalent).
• Proven track record of translating research into deployed systems.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy perception algorithms for robotics systems, including object detection, segmentation, tracking, depth estimation, and scene understanding
• Lead research initiatives in computer vision, sensor fusion and 3D perception
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including robotics engineers, software engineers, and product managers to define and deliver perception capabilities
• Drive end-to-end ownership of ML models — from data collection and labeling strategy to training, evaluation, and deployment
• Mentor junior scientists and engineers; contribute to a culture of technical excellence
• Define and track key metrics to measure perception system performance in real-world environments
• Publish research findings in top-tier venues (CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICRA, NeurIPS, etc.) and contribute to patents

Skills

Java

C++

Python

Navigation ML

Education

PhD in Robotics/CS/EE/Controls

Tools

ROS/ROS2

Gazebo

MuJoCo

Isaac Sim

PyTorch

JAX

Job description

Amazon is seeking a Scientist in Robot Navigation to architect and deliver intelligent, safe, scalable navigation systems for robotic platforms. You will blend learning-based planning with principled MPC-based trajectory planning, and translate research into production-grade deployments.

You will lead research on perception, navigation, and multi-domain coordination, collaborating with teams across robotics, software, and product management to drive impact in dynamic environments.