Senior Robotics Navigation Scientist

Amazon Science; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 172,000 - 222,000; Full time

Job summary

Amazon Science in Sunnyvale, CA seeks a Senior Scientist in Robot Navigation to architect and deploy intelligent navigation systems for autonomous robots. You will blend learning-based planning with principled control guarantees and scale production-grade solutions.

The role requires a PhD and strong experience in MPC, 3D perception, and deploying models on physical systems, with collaboration across robotics, software, and product teams.

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
• 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

Machine learning

Navigation

MPC

Education

PhD in Robotics/CS/EE/Controls

Tools

ROS/ROS2

Isaac Sim

MuJoCo

Gazebo

PyTorch

JAX

Job description

Amazon Science in Sunnyvale, CA seeks a Senior Scientist in Robot Navigation to architect and deploy intelligent navigation systems for autonomous robots. You will blend learning-based planning with principled control guarantees and scale production-grade solutions.

The role requires a PhD and strong experience in MPC, 3D perception, and deploying models on physical systems, with collaboration across robotics, software, and product teams.