Research Scientist, Fauna

Fauna Robotics; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Fauna Robotics is seeking a Research Scientist to define how robot capabilities are measured, stress-tested, and improved. The role focuses on evaluation frameworks, data collection protocols, task structures, and human-in-the-loop systems.

It connects teleoperation, operator interfaces, robot learning, and policy validation through research machinery that determines readiness of robot behavior. The candidate will work on designing evaluation frameworks, data collection protocols, and scalable

Qualifications

• Experience in robotics, ML, experimental systems, or related fields.
• Ability to analyze experimental and observational data sets.
• Comfort applying scientific methods to product and business problems.
• Systems thinking across software, data, operators and robot behavior.

Responsibilities

• Design evaluation frameworks for real-world robot tasks and behaviors.
• Define data collection protocols that improve policy learning and validation.
• Connect teleoperation workflows with scalable robot evaluation systems.
• Build methods for measuring capability, generalization, and failure modes.

Skills

Research experience

Data analysis

Scientific method

Systems thinking

Job description

What the role actually is

Fauna is hiring a research scientist to define how robot capabilities are measured, stress-tested, and improved. The listing focuses on evaluation frameworks, data collection protocols, task structures, and human-in-the-loop systems.

The role connects teleoperation, operator-facing interfaces, robot learning, and policy validation. It is less about a single model and more about the research machinery that decides whether a robot behavior is actually ready.

What you would work on

• Design evaluation frameworks for real-world robot tasks and behaviors
• Define data collection protocols that improve policy learning and validation
• Connect teleoperation workflows with scalable robot evaluation systems
• Build methods for measuring capability, generalization, and failure modes

What they are asking for

• Research experience in robotics, machine learning, experimental systems, or related areas
• Ability to analyze experimental and observational data sets
• Comfort applying scientific methods to product and business problems
• Systems thinking across software, data, operators, and robot behavior

Why this one is worth a look

Evaluation is becoming one of the hard product problems in embodied AI. This role is interesting because it treats measurement, operators, and interfaces as part of the robot learning loop, not as afterthoughts.