Senior Robot Navigation Scientist — ML, MPC & Real-World Autonomy

Amazon; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 192,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Amazon is seeking a Sr. Scientist in Robot Navigation to architect and deliver intelligent, safe, scalable navigation systems for autonomous robots.

You will blend learning-based planning with principled control, advance foundation models for embodied agents, and advance MPC-based trajectory planning across dynamic environments. You will collaborate with world-class teams, publish in top venues, and mentor engineers while delivering production-grade navigation solutions for real-world robots at

Qualifications

• Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
• Have publications at top-tier peer-reviewed conferences or journals
• PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Controls, or a related field
• 5+ 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
• Train ML models for deployment in simulation and real-world robots, identify and document their limitations post-deployment
• Drive technical discussions within your team and with key stakeholders to develop innovative solutions to address identified limitations
• Actively contribute to brainstorming sessions on adjacent topics, bringing fresh perspectives that help peers grow and succeed — and in doing so, build lasting trust across the team
• Mentor team members while maintaining significant hands-on contribution to technical solutions

Skills

Java

C++

Python

Publications

Robot navigation

MPC

Research-to-deployment

Education

PhD in Robotics/CS/EE/Controls

Tools

PyTorch

JAX

Isaac Sim

MuJoCo

Gazebo

ROS/ROS2

Job description

Amazon is seeking a Sr. Scientist in Robot Navigation to architect and deliver intelligent, safe, scalable navigation systems for autonomous robots.

You will blend learning-based planning with principled control, advance foundation models for embodied agents, and advance MPC-based trajectory planning across dynamic environments. You will collaborate with world-class teams, publish in top venues, and mentor engineers while delivering production-grade navigation solutions for real-world robots at