Sr. Applied Scientist, Fauna

Amazon Science; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 192,200 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Fauna Robotics, an Amazon company, is seeking a Senior Applied Scientist to advance robot navigation in indoor environments. You will develop robust navigation systems for autonomous operation in dynamic spaces, explore a range of methods from classical to learning-based approaches, and drive reliable real-world performance.

As a senior member, you will mentor junior scientists while collaborating with cross-functional teams and staying at the forefront of navigation research.

Qualifications

• PhD or Master’s degree and 6+ years of applied research experience
• 3+ years of industry or academic research experience
• Strong publication record at major Robotics/ML/AI conferences (e.g., RSS, CoRL, ICRA, IROS, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR)
• Experience programming in Python, C++, or related language
• Experience with sim-to-real transfer for robotic systems
• Demonstrated track record of leading technical projects
• Experience mentoring junior scientists/engineers

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement robust navigation systems for autonomous operation in dynamic indoor environments
• Build simulation-based and on-device evaluation frameworks with benchmarks and metrics
• Conduct sim-to-real transfer experiments and close performance gaps
• Collaborate with world model, manipulation, and other teams to integrate navigation into the robot system
• Stay current with advances in robot navigation and spatial reasoning
• Mentor fellow scientists and engineers while making strong individual technical contributions

Skills

Python

C++

Research leadership

Publications

Mentoring

Leadership

Education

PhD

Master's degree

Job description

Description

We are seeking a Sr. Applied Scientist to focus on Robot Navigation. In this role, you\'ll research and develop advanced navigation systems that enable robots to move reliably and safely through complex, dynamic environments. You\'ll work across a broad spectrum of navigation approaches—from classical methods to learning-based techniques and foundation models—to build robust solutions for autonomous robot navigation.

Key job responsibilities

• Develop and implement robust navigation systems that enable reliable autonomous operation in complex, dynamic indoor environments with static and dynamic obstacles


• Build simulation-based and on-device evaluation frameworks with comprehensive benchmarks and metrics for systematic comparison of navigation methods


• Conduct sim-to-real transfer experiments, analyzing performance gaps and developing techniques to ensure reliable real-world navigation performance


• Collaborate with world model, manipulation, and other teams to ensure seamless integration of navigation capabilities into the full robot system


• Stay current with the latest advances in robot navigation, spatial reasoning, and related fields, and apply relevant findings to improve system performance


• Mentor fellow scientists and engineers while maintaining strong individual technical contributions

About The Team

Fauna Robotics, an Amazon company, is building capable, safe, and genuinely delightful robots for everyday life. Our goal is simple: make robots people actually want to live and interact with in everyday human spaces. We believe that future won’t arrive until building for robotics becomes far more accessible. Today, too much effort is spent reinventing the fundamentals. We’re changing that by developing tightly integrated hardware and software systems that make it faster, safer, and more intuitive to create real-world robotic products.

Basic Qualifications

• PhD, or Master\'s degree and 6+ years of applied research experience


• 3+ years of industry or academic research experience


• Strong publication record at major Robotics/ML/AI conferences (e.g., RSS, CoRL, ICRA, IROS, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR)


• Experience programming in Python, C++, or related language


• Experience with sim-to-real transfer for robotic systems


• Demonstrated track record of leading technical projects


• Experience mentoring junior scientists/engineers

Preferred Qualifications

• History of impactful first-author publications at major conferences


• Experience bridging research with practical engineering implementation in robotics systems


• Experience with visual navigation, semantic navigation, or foundation models applied to robot navigation


• Experience evaluating and benchmarking multiple navigation approaches (classical, learning-based, foundation model-based)

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

USA, CA, Sunnyvale - 192,200.00 - 260,000.00 USD annually