Senior Applied Scientist

Description

Amazon is seeking exceptional talent to help develop the next generation of advanced robotics systems that will transform automation at Amazon's scale. We're building robotic systems that combine frontier AI, sophisticated control, and advanced mechanical design to create adaptable automation capable of working safely alongside humans in dynamic environments. This is an opportunity to shape the future of robotics and automation at an unprecedented scale, working with world-class teams pushing the boundaries of what's possible in robotic manipulation, locomotion, and human-robot interaction.

We are seeking a Senior Applied Scientist to develop tactile- and force-driven manipulation policies for highly dexterous, multi-fingered robotic hands and grippers. In this role you will research and build policy learning algorithms that enable robotic hands to perform grasping and in-hand manipulation in unstructured, real-world environments, using touch and force feedback as first-class signals rather than afterthoughts. Much of this work is grounded in reinforcement learning.

To be successful you need to be highly motivated, dive deep, and deliver to the highest standards. You will demonstrate strong working knowledge of modern policy learning methods, with expertise in taking algorithms from simulation onto real hardware. That means being comfortable working against real physical constraints and treating sim-to-real as a core research problem rather than optimizing for benchmark numbers alone. You will work across tactile signal processing, contact-rich manipulation, sim-to-real transfer, and multi-modal sensor fusion to build robust solutions for autonomous grasping, dexterous re-orientation, and fine motor control. You will bring the desire to learn from new challenges, and the problem-solving and communication skills to work within a highly interactive and experienced team.

Key job responsibilities
- Design and train manipulation policies that leverage tactile and force feedback for dexterous grasping, in-hand manipulation, and contact-rich tasks, using reinforcement learning, imitation learning, or hybrid approaches.
- Drive sim-to-real transfer, closing the gap between simulated and physical performance on real robotic hands.
- Shape objectives and control strategies with the hardware in mind, accounting for how motors and actuators actually behave: transmission ratios, torque versus power, backdrivability, and thermal limits.
- Build simulation-based and on-robot evaluation frameworks, with benchmarks and metrics that make tactile perception and policy performance systematically comparable across iterations.
- Own scientific and technical projects within the tactile sensing and manipulation workstreams, driving from research concept through deployment on physical robotic systems — and, at the senior level, set direction across a workstream.
- Collaborate with hardware, mechanical design, firmware, and controls teams — and with partner applied science organizations — to translate research advances into deployable robotic capabilities, and to inform sensor and actuator design decisions with policy-level requirements.
- Publish at top-tier venues and build collaborations with the external research community.
- Contribute to a strong scientific bar on the team through code and design review, and mentor engineers and interns working on real-world manipulation and sensing problems.

A day in the life
Your morning might start with a standup alongside hardware and controls engineers reviewing overnight sim-to-real training runs on a multi-finger gripper, debugging why a grasp policy that worked in simulation is slipping on a real sensor array. Mid-morning you join the weekly tactile sensing workstream to align on sensor integration milestones and share early results from a contact-state estimator you have been prototyping. After lunch you spend a focused block iterating on a reinforcement learning reward formulation, testing variations in simulation before queuing runs on the cluster. Later you pair with a mechanical engineer to review sensor placement trade-offs on an upcoming gripper revision, then wrap the day by drafting a short experiment write-up and sketching next steps for a conference submission.

No two days look exactly the same: one week you may be collecting teleoperated demonstrations on the physical robot to seed an imitation learning pipeline; the next you could be deep in a codebase refactor to support a new tactile modality. Throughout, you balance hands-on research — writing algorithms, running experiments, analyzing data — with cross-team collaboration and mentoring. The common thread is moving from research insight to working capability on real hardware, with a tight feedback loop between simulation and the physical world.

About the team
Our is developing next-generation manipulation capabilities for highly dexterous multi-fingered grippers and hands. Our work spans tactile sensor development, manipulation policy learning, and the tight integration of sensing hardware with intelligent control software. We are building systems that can feel, adapt, and manipulate with human-level dexterity.

You will join a team working at the frontier of tactile sensing and contact-rich manipulation, helping define how robots perceive and interact with objects through touch. Because we build the hands as well as the policies that drive them, you will have a direct line to the sensor, actuator, and mechanism designs your algorithms depend on — and real influence over how they evolve. This is an opportunity to solve hard problems across perception, learning, and physical interaction alongside a team of scientists and engineers building toward real-world deployment.

Basic Qualifications

- PhD, or Master's degree and 6+ years of applied research experience
- Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
- Research or applied experience in one or more of: tactile sensing, manipulation policy learning, contact-rich manipulation, dexterous grasping, or multi-modal perception for robotics
- Experience deploying learned policies or control algorithms on physical robotic hardware

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience leading technical initiatives and key deliverables
- Experience bridging research with practical engineering implementation in physical robotic systems
- Hands-on experience with modern tactile sensing hardware and tactile signal processing
- Strong publication record at major robotics/ML venues (e.g., RSS, CoRL, ICRA, IROS, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR), including impactful first-author work in tactile sensing or dexterous manipulation
- Experience developing manipulation policies using reinforcement learning, imitation learning, or foundation models for contact-rich tasks
- Demonstrated experience with sim-to-real transfer for tactile-enabled manipulation
- Familiarity with both learned and classical approaches to contact dynamics, including impedance and admittance control
- Experience with force and torque control, and with proprioceptive force estimation on torque- or current-controlled actuators
- Experience with robotics simulation stacks (e.g., Isaac, MuJoCo) and robot modeling (URDF)
- Experience with teleoperation and demonstration-collection pipelines for dexterous hands
- Familiarity with multi-finger or multi-contact gripper platforms

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

Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.