Senior RL Scientist - Robotic Manipulation

Amazon Science; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 167,000 - 226,000; Full time

Job summary

Amazon Science seeks a Senior Applied Scientist to guide a compact team advancing reinforcement learning for manipulation. You will set technical direction from simulation training to reliable hardware execution and demonstrate capabilities on real robots at scale.

You will mentor scientists, collaborate across control, perception and hardware, and publish findings to extend Amazon’s robotics impact globally.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent research experience.
• 7+ years of applied research experience.
• 3+ years of building machine learning models for business applications.
• Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language.
• Track record of training reinforcement learning or imitation learning policies in simulation and transferring them to real systems.
• 3+ years of building and deploying learning-based control on robotic systems.
• Experience leading technical projects and mentoring scientists or engineers.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction for learning non-prehensile and contact-rich manipulation policies, from testing latest advances to demonstrated capability on hardware.
• Oversee the development of reinforcement learning approaches that address diverse, demanding manipulation conditions.
• Own the path from simulation training to reliable, real-time execution on physical robots, and decide where learned approaches replace engineered ones.
• Demonstrate new manipulation capabilities on real robots at scale, and turn one-off results into repeatable methods.
• Establish the standards, evaluation practices, and data-informed improvement loops for the team.
• Mentor scientists and engineers, raising the bar for applied science rigor and engineering quality.
• Partner across control, perception, and hardware to integrate learned behaviors into working systems.
• Represent Amazon in academia through publications and scientific presentations.

Skills

Java

C++

Python

Reinforcement learning

Machine learning

Leadership

Education

PhD or equivalent research experience

Job description

Amazon Science seeks a Senior Applied Scientist to guide a compact team advancing reinforcement learning for manipulation. You will set technical direction from simulation training to reliable hardware execution and demonstrate capabilities on real robots at scale.

You will mentor scientists, collaborate across control, perception and hardware, and publish findings to extend Amazon’s robotics impact globally.