Senior Applied Scientist - Robotic Manipulation & RL

Amazon; Seattle, Northern (WA, KY); Hybrid; USD 167,000 - 226,000; Full time

Job summary

Amazon is seeking a Senior Applied Scientist in Seattle to guide manipulation reinforcement learning and non-prehensile policy development. You will lead a small team, set technical direction from simulation to hardware, and collaborate across control, perception, and hardware to deploy robust manipulation capabilities at scale.

The role includes mentoring scientists, publishing results, and representing Amazon in academic settings, with responsibilities spanning from research to

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent research experience.
• 7+ years of applied research experience.
• 3+ years building ML models for business applications and deploying ML in robotics.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction for learning manipulation policies and test on hardware.
• Oversee RL approaches addressing diverse manipulation conditions.
• Own the path from simulation to real-time execution on robots; move learned policies to hardware.
• Demonstrate capabilities on real robots at scale and turn results into repeatable methods.
• Establish standards, evaluation practices, and data-informed improvement loops.
• Mentor scientists and engineers and raise the bar for applied science rigor.
• Partner across control, perception, and hardware to integrate learned behaviors into systems.
• Represent Amazon in academia through publications and conferences.

Skills

PhD

Applied research

ML models

Java/C++/Python

RL training

Robotics control

Leadership

Education

PhD or equivalent

Tools

Java

C++

Python

Job description

Amazon is seeking a Senior Applied Scientist in Seattle to guide manipulation reinforcement learning and non-prehensile policy development. You will lead a small team, set technical direction from simulation to hardware, and collaborate across control, perception, and hardware to deploy robust manipulation capabilities at scale.

The role includes mentoring scientists, publishing results, and representing Amazon in academic settings, with responsibilities spanning from research to