SimBot Challenge FAQs

Frequently asked questions about the challenge.
General
What is the Alexa Prize?
Alexa is Amazon’s cloud-based voice service available on over 100 million devices from Amazon and third-party device manufacturers. With Alexa, you can build natural voice experiences that offer customers a more intuitive way to interact with the technology they use every day. Our collection of tools, APIs, reference solutions, and documentation makes it easy for anyone to build with Alexa.
Why did Amazon create the Alexa Prize?
The Alexa Prize, an annual university competition dedicated to accelerating the field of conversational artificial intelligence (AI), was created to recognize students from around the globe who are changing the way we interact with technology. The goal is to advance several areas of conversational AI including natural language understanding (NLU), context modeling, dialog management, commonsense reasoning, natural language generation (NLG), and knowledge acquisition.
How does the Alexa Prize support research?
The Alexa Prize is a research testbed for university students to experiment with and advance conversational AI at scale.

Research teams own the intellectual property (IP) in their systems and are encouraged to publish scientific articles on their work. As described in the Official Rules, participating teams grant Amazon a non-exclusive license to any technology or software they develop in connection with the competition.
What new datasets will I have access to as part of the Alexa Prize?
The TEACh dataset as well as a training dataset proprietary to the live interaction portion of the SimBot Challenge will be available to competitors in each phase.
SimBot
What is the SimBot Challenge?
SimBot, a competition focused on helping advance development of next-generation virtual assistants that will assist humans in completing real-world tasks by continuously learning, and gaining the ability to perform commonsense reasoning.

The SimBot Challenge will have two phases: A public benchmark phase, and a live interactions phase. Participants in both phases will build machine-learning models for natural language understanding, human-robot interaction, and robotic task completion. Artificial intelligence challenges addressed in the competition relate to reasoning on language and scene understanding, learning from demonstration, self-learning, and task completion utilizing natural language.

Unlike previous Alexa Prize competitions, the public benchmark challenge phase will be open to university teams, as well as individuals in academia and industry interested in advancing the science of AI and engaging top researchers from around the globe. The SimBot Challenge public benchmark phase is like existing visual language navigation competitions.
What is the difference between the Public Benchmark Challenge and the Live Interaction Challenge?
The Public Benchmark Challenge is open to any individual or team, academic or industry, who wants to complete and submit a model for evaluation and rating during the evaluation period. It is based on the TEACh dataset offered to the research community in October, 2021. The Live Interaction Period’s participation is limited solely to the university-based teams selected for the SimBot Challenge in November 2021 and June, 2022. These teams will each receive Amazon sponsorship to build a SimBot that will compete in a challenge from July, 2022 to September 2022 where they will receive real time ratings and feedback from Alexa Users.
Why is the SimBot - Live Interaction Challenge only limited to university teams?
The SimBot Challenge - live interaction phase is part of the Alexa Prize which is currently limited to universities and university students in Amazon initiatives to advance AI. However, the Public Benchmarking Challenge is open to both academic and university-based teams.
What will my SimBot do?
SimBot will navigate in a virtual environment to complete challenges guided by Alexa users. SimBot will interact with objects in the environment including but not limited to those common to offices and homes. There will be obstacles and hazards introduced to make game play fun and challenging.
How will I build my SimBot?
SimBots will use images from the game and instructions from Alexa users to navigate in a virtual world. Teams will build AI models which recognize objects and scenes as well as understand natural language commands from users. We plan to provide baseline data and a baseline model as a reference but we expect teams to develop new and novel approaches as well as augment the provided data to improve performance.
Eligibility: Public Benchmark Challenge
Phase 1, SimBot challenge
Who is eligible to participate in the public benchmark challenge?
Any individual or team, academic or industry-based.
How do I sign up to participate in the public benchmark challenge?
A registration form will open on November 15, 2021 at alexaprize.com.
Is funding available to university teams competing in the public benchmark challenge?
No, funding is only available to university teams selected to participate in the SimBot Challenge. In addition to the teams selected in 2021 up to four new, high-performing teams from the public benchmark challenge will be invited to apply for the SimBot challenge, live interaction phase for which funding is available. Learn more here.
Who can apply to participate?
Any individual or team can register and participate in the public benchmark phase with exception of parties from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and the region of Crimea.

Registration for the public benchmark challenge will open November 15, 2021. The challenge will begin on January 10, 2022.
Do I need to be a certain age?
Participants must be at or above the age of majority in the country, state, province or jurisdiction of residence at the time of registration.
Can I enroll if a family member is an Amazon employee?
Immediate family members and household members of Amazon employees, directors and contractors are not eligible to participate.
Eligibility: SimBot Challenge
Includes sponsored teams for both Public Benchmark and Live Interaction phases
Who can apply to participate?
The Alexa Prize is open to full-time students enrolled in an accredited university, with the exception of universities in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and the region of Crimea (see Official Rules). Proof of enrollment will be required to participate.
Can I participate if I don’t attend a university?
No. The Alexa Prize is open only to full-time enrolled university students.
Do I need to be enrolled in a university program throughout the duration of the competition?
All participating team members must remain full-time students in good standing at their university while participating in the competition.
Do I need to be a certain age?
Participants must be at or above the age of majority in the country, state, province or jurisdiction of residence at the time of entry.
Can I enroll if a family member is an Amazon employee?
Immediate family members and household members of Amazon employees, directors and contractors are not eligible to participate. See Official Rules for additional restrictions.
If my team fails to apply for the SimBot Challenge now, will there be any future opportunities to compete in the Live Interaction challenge?
Yes, the initial application period run from October 4-31, 2021. In addition to the teams selected in 2021 up to four new, high-performing university teams from the public benchmark challenge will be invited to apply for the SimBot challenge, live interaction phase for which funding is available. Learn more here.
Will university teams selected post-Public Benchmark Challenge be eligible for funding and for what amount?
Teams selected for the SimBot Challenge in June, 2022 will be eligible for funding.
If my team was not selected during the first application period are we eligible to re-apply in may if we qualify?
Yes. University-based teams that participate in the public benchmark phase are eligible to re-apply for the SimBot challenge between May 9 - 23, 2022. Four new, high-performing university teams from the public benchmark challenge will be invited to apply for the SimBot challenge, live interaction phase for which funding is available. Learn more here.
My team is not completely comprised of university students but we perform well in the public benchmark challenge? Is there an opportunity for us to continue in the competition?
Yes, we plan to continue the public benchmark competition through the end of 2022.
My company does collaborative work with several universities, are we eligible to compete in the live interaction challenge alongside them?
No, only full-time students are eligible to participate in the SimBot challenge, which includes the live interaction period.
My university and another frequently collaborate on projects - is there any exception to the students all enrolled in one university rule?
Applications are limited to students all from the same, single, university.
Teams
How many teams will be selected to participate?
All applications will be reviewed and evaluated by a panel of Amazon experts. Up to ten teams will be selected and sponsored by Amazon. All teams selected in November, 2021 will receive a $250,000 grant while those selected in June, 2022 will receive a $200,000 grant intended to support two full-time students, a month of faculty time, free Alexa devices, and free AWS hosting including access to CPU and GPU based machines, SQL and NoSQL databases, and object storage. See the Official Rules for details.
How many team members can our team have?
There are no minimum or maximum team member requirements. All team members must be enrolled in their university throughout the duration of the competition. All teams will receive a $250,000 grant if selected in November 2021 or a $200,000 grant if selected in June, 2022 regardless of how many members are on the team. We recommend a team with 4-6 students with diverse fields of study or areas of expertise.
Can students from different universities be on the same team?
Teams must be comprised of students attending the same university.
Can one university have more than one team?
Yes, universities may have more than one team.
Can I participate on two separate teams?
You can only be a part of one team for the duration of the competition.
Can undergraduate and graduate students work together?
Yes, teams may be comprised of undergraduate and graduate students.
Do I need a faculty advisor?
All teams must nominate a faculty advisor and include the faculty advisor’s consent in the applications.
What is the role of the faculty advisor?
Faculty advisors will advise students on technical directions and be a sounding board for new ideas, similar to a graduate school advisor. They will also act as the official representative from the university for this competition.
Can we add or remove team members during the competition?
During the competition, faculty advisors may request to remove or add members to the team, subject to approval by Amazon.
Can we discuss our SimBot with faculty or students who aren’t on our team?
Only team members may work on their SimBot. However, the faculty advisor and other students and faculty members at your university may provide support and advice to your team and may co-author technical publications and research papers.
Application process
How do we apply?
Check the SimBot page for the latest update on applications.
What do we need to apply?
Once you have selected your team members, team leader, and faculty sponsor, you are ready to begin the application process.
Do all team members have to apply?
Each team must have a team lead, who should apply on behalf of the whole team. Your application must include all of your team members’ information.
Is there an application fee?
There is no application fee.
How will teams be selected to participate?
All applications will be reviewed by a panel of Amazon employees. Teams will be selected based on the following criteria: (1) the potential scientific contribution to the field; (2) the technical merit of the approach; (3) the novelty of the idea; and (4) an assessment of the team’s ability to execute against their plan. Please be sure to provide enough detail in your application to enable our experts to evaluate your proposal.
Competition details
What is the goal of the challenge?
To develop AI models which advance the state of the art and allow users to naturally interact with a robotic assistant in a virtual world to successfully complete a range of challenges.
How will winners be selected?
Winners will be determined based on the final standings at the completion of the finals period.
Can we use other funding to help us participate in this challenge?
Yes, you may use other funding to support your team, subject to the terms described in the Official Rules. External funding will need to be disclosed by January 1, 2023.
Will Alexa customers be able to engage with our SimBot?
Your team will be required to submit its SimBot for certification and publication by the Amazon Alexa team. After certification, you will enter the Internal Amazon Beta Period, where Amazon employees will test your SimBot and provide feedback. After the Internal Amazon Beta Period, we will allow Amazon Alexa customers to try your SimBot and provide feedback to you. Amazon may impose Availability Criteria, or requirements the SimBot must meet before it will be made available to Alexa users. Availability Criteria may include criteria such as a minimum average customer rating, uptime requirements, and an ability to consistently filter offensive content.
Amazon launched the Echo in the UK, Germany, India, Japan, and other countries. Will localized languages be supported?
Your team must build its SimBot using U.S. English. Your SimBot will be available to Alexa customers in the U.S. Customers in other countries may also access it by setting their Amazon PFM (Preferred Marketplace) to U.S.
Will we publish our research from the Alexa Prize?
Yes. Publishing research papers as an outcome of your work on the Alexa Prize is required for all teams participating in the competition, although teams should not publish Amazon confidential information, as described in the Official Rules. The Alexa Prize requires all teams to submit a technical paper for the Alexa Prize proceedings. Your SimBot will not be selected for the finals if your team does not submit a technical paper for Alexa Prize proceedings. Papers will be published at the end of the competition in an online Proceedings of the Alexa Prize, which will be publicly available.

Teams may also publish research papers in third-party publications and conferences, as long as all papers are provided to Amazon for review at least two weeks before the submission deadlines and no research papers are published before the Alexa Prize proceedings are published without Amazon’s prior approval.
Who will own the intellectual property rights in my submission?
You will retain ownership over your SimBot. Amazon will have a non-exclusive license to any technology or software you develop in connection with the competition. See the Official Rules for details.
Prizes
What are the prizes for winning the competition?
A prize of $500,000 will be awarded to the team that creates the best SimBot. The second-place and third-place finalist teams will receive a $100,000 and a $50,000 prize, respectively. See the contest rules for details.
Do we get a stipend and devices to participate in the Alexa Prize?
Up to ten teams will be sponsored to participate in the Alexa Prize in November, 2021. These teams’ universities will receive a $250,000 research grant to fund the team members’ work over the year. Additional teams selected to participate in the SimBot Live Interaction challenge in June, 2022 will receive a $200,000 research grant to fund the team members’ work over the year.

The sponsorship includes one Alexa-enabled device per team member for up to a total of three devices per team and one Alexa-enabled device per faculty advisor, free AWS services to support the development of their SimBot, and support from the Alexa team.
How can the grant be spent?
The grants will be awarded with the intention that they will support two full-time students for the duration of the Competition and one month of the Faculty Advisor’s salary. No more than 35% of the research grants may be allocated to administrative fees. If your team would like to use the funds in another manner, your faculty advisor must receive approval from Amazon before doing so.
What happens if we are selected and receive a stipend but can no longer participate?
Stipends will be awarded in installments payable to the university. If your team withdraws before any of the installments, remaining funds will not be transferred to the university.
How will the prizes be distributed among a team?
The first, second, and third place prizes will be distributed equally among all registered team members. The official list of registered team members must be confirmed by January 30, 2023.
Timeline
What are the key milestones of the competition?
Teams must submit their applications between October 1, 2021 and October 31, 2021. Between November 1 and November 10, 2021, we will announce teams selected to participate. In the summer of 2022 following the public benchmark phase and the second application period teams will be invited to an Alexa Prize Bootcamp at Amazon where they will receive training on the resources made available to all competing teams. The finals will be scheduled between January 30 and March 27, 2023 and will determine the winning teams in the first annual SimBot Challenge.
If selected, when will we receive the stipend, devices, access to the Alexa Prize SimBot toolkit, our AWS account, and be introduced to our point of contact?
We will reach out to all teams no later than November 10, 2021 with instructions on next steps. Up to ten teams will be selected to receive a $250,000 stipend, Alexa-enabled devices, free AWS services to support their development efforts, and support from the Alexa team.
More information
See the full competition rules or submit your questions. Need assistance? Email: alexaprizesupport@amazon.com

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The People eXperience Technology (PXT) Central Science (PXTCS)'s mission is to make PXT the most scientific, technologically proficient, and inclusive HR organization in the world. PXTCS does this by accelerating scientific rigor in business-led initiatives, working backwards from employee experience, and delivering science-driven products that improve the well-being of and value of work for Amazonians worldwide. We are seeking an Applied Scientist to build production machine learning systems that solve complex business problems at scale. You will design, develop, and deploy ML solutions that directly impact millions of users and drive strategic decision-making across the organization. In this role, you will work on challenging problems spanning predictive modeling, computer vision, natural language processing, recommendation systems, and generative AI applications. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate ambiguous business challenges into rigorous technical solutions. Key job responsibilities - Apply and adapt state-of-the-art scientific techniques to solve well-defined problems in employee experience, using reasonable assumptions, data, and customer requirements. - Design, develop, and implement small-to-medium ML components with input and guidance from senior scientists, taking ownership of the code in your components. - Write secure, stable, testable, maintainable, well-reviewed code (at the SDE I bar) to deliver solutions into production that benefit customers and the business. - Collaborate with cross-functional partners to understand business context and impact, and help mentor interns. - Communicate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences, from technical peers to senior leadership About the team The People eXperience and Technology Central Science Team (PXTCS) uses economics, applied science, statistics, and machine learning to proactively identify mechanisms and process improvements which simultaneously improve Amazon and the lives, wellbeing, and the value of work to Amazonians. We are an interdisciplinary team that combines the talents of science and engineering to develop and deliver solutions that measurably achieve this goal.
US, WA, Seattle
Interested in modeling and understanding customer behavior through machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data mining over TB scale data with huge business impact on millions of customers? Join our team of Scientists developing models to model customer behavior and optimize the customer experience with Amazon Prime. This includes understanding who our customers are, long-term value of the Prime membership program, and creating the right personalized framework for content and subscription optimization. As an AI/ML expert, you will partner directly with product owners to intake, build, and directly apply your modeling solutions. There are numerous scientific and technical challenges you will get to tackle in this role, such as optimizing/fine-tuning GenAI/LLM solutions for Prime personalization, building GenAI foundation models, global scalability of models, combinatorial optimization, cold start problem, accelerated experimentation, short/long term goals modeling, and multi-step optimization leading to reinforcement learning of the customer journey. We employ techniques from GenAI/LLMs, supervised/semi-supervised learning, deep learning, transformer architectures, using outcomes from causal Econometric modeling, and Reinforcement learning. As the central science team within Prime, our expertise gets routinely called upon to weigh in on a variety of topics. We also emphasize the need and value of scientific research and have developed a strong publication and patent record (internally/externally) which you will be a part of. You will also utilize and be exposed to the latest in ML technologies and infrastructure: AWS technologies (EMR/Spark, Sagemaker, DynamoDB, S3, ClaudeCode), various AI/ML algorithms and techniques (Deep Learning, GenAI/LLMs, transformers, supervised/unsupervised/semi-supervised/reinforcement learning), and statistical modeling techniques. Stay abreast of current literature in the field and advance/build novel science solutions leveraging SoTA solutions. Build and develop AI/ML models and supporting infrastructure at TB scale, in coordination with software engineering teams. Leverage Deep Learning and GenAI solutions for building foundation models and personalized optimization solution. Develop offline policy estimation tools and integrate with measurement systems/econometric models. Establish scalable, efficient, automated processes for large scale data analyses, science development, science validation and model implementation. Analyze and extract relevant information from large amounts of Amazon’s historical business data to help automate and optimize key processes. Work closely with the business to understand their problem space, identify the opportunities and formulate the problems. Use AI/machine learning, data mining, statistical techniques and others to create actionable, meaningful, and scalable solutions for the business problems. Design, develop and evaluate highly innovative models and statistical approaches to understand and predict customer behavior and to solve business problems. Key job responsibilities Stay abreast of current literature in the field and advance/build novel science solutions leveraging SoTA solutions. Build and develop AI/ML models and supporting infrastructure at TB scale, in coordination with software engineering teams. Leverage Deep Learning and GenAI solutions for building foundation models and personalized optimization solution. Develop offline policy estimation tools and integrate with measurement systems/econometric models. Establish scalable, efficient, automated processes for large scale data analyses, science development, science validation and model implementation. Analyze and extract relevant information from large amounts of Amazon’s historical business data to help automate and optimize key processes. Work closely with the business to understand their problem space, identify the opportunities and formulate the problems. Use AI/machine learning, data mining, statistical techniques and others to create actionable, meaningful, and scalable solutions for the business problems. Design, develop and evaluate highly innovative models and statistical approaches to understand and predict customer behavior and to solve business problems.
US, WA, Seattle
Are you fascinated by the power of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLM) to transform the way we interact with technology? Are you passionate about applying advanced machine learning techniques to solve complex challenges in the e-commerce space? If so, Amazon's International Seller Services team has an exciting opportunity for you as an Applied Scientist. At Amazon, we strive to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they want to buy online. Our International Seller Services team plays a pivotal role in expanding the reach of our marketplace to sellers worldwide, ensuring customers have access to a vast selection of products. As an Applied Scientist, you will join a talented and collaborative team that is dedicated to driving innovation and delivering exceptional experiences for our customers and sellers. You will be part of a global team that is focused on acquiring new merchants from around the world to sell on Amazon’s global marketplaces around the world. The position is based in Seattle but will interact with global leaders and teams in Europe, Japan, China, Australia, and other regions. Join us at the Central Science Team of Amazon's International Seller Services and become part of a global team that is redefining the future of e-commerce. With access to vast amounts of data, emerging technology, and a diverse community of talented individuals, you will have the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on the way sellers engage with our platform and customers worldwide. Together, we will drive innovation, solve complex problems, and shape the future of e-commerce. Key job responsibilities Apply your expertise in LLM models to design, develop, and implement scalable machine learning solutions that address complex language-related challenges in the international seller services domain. Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including software engineers, data scientists, and product managers, to define project requirements, establish success metrics, and deliver high-quality solutions. Conduct thorough data analysis to gain insights, identify patterns, and drive actionable recommendations that enhance seller performance and customer experiences across various international marketplaces. Continuously explore and evaluate state-of-the-art NLP techniques and methodologies to improve the accuracy and efficiency of language-related systems. Communicate complex technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, providing clear explanations and guidance on proposed solutions and their potential impact. A day in the life Push the boundaries of applied science - fine-tune large language models and develop novel NLP techniques to crack complex challenges in seller acquisition, content generation, and catalog understanding Work with data at massive scale - tap into some of the richest e-commerce datasets in the world to uncover patterns, generate insights, and drive real business impact Turn research into reality - prototype bold ideas, then partner with engineers to bring your models into production, balancing scientific rigor with real-world scalability Think globally, deliver worldwide - collaborate with leaders and teams across Europe, Japan, China, and Australia to build solutions that generalize across international marketplaces Solve problems that matter - translate ambiguous business challenges into well-scoped science problems that directly serve sellers and customers around the globe Collaborate with the best - engage in design reviews, contribute to technical thought leadership, and learn from a diverse community of world-class scientists and engineers Never stop learning - stay at the frontier of NLP, LLMs, and applied ML, bringing the latest research advances into your work Own your impact - operate with a customer-obsessed mindset where every model you build helps sellers thrive and expands selection for customers worldwide
US, CA, Palo Alto
Are you passionate about solving big problems from ground-up? Do you enjoy building new state-of-the-art products at internet scale? Come lead the innovation in this startup team, vertical ad products. This is a green field problem without a known answer or a pattern to follow. We have ambitious vision to simplify full funnel advertising solutions, at scale, with specialized agentic AI-powered models and diversify the demand to strategic verticals including finserv, autos, locals.. etc. We are seeking an experienced Sr Data Scientist to drive innovation in our Ads Foundational Model. In this individual contributor role, you will apply advanced machine learning techniques to improve advertiser performance and customer experience. Key job responsibilities As a Data Scientist on this team, you will: 1. Develop and drive the science strategy for Ads Foundational Model (Ads-FM), aligning it with the program's objectives and overall business goals. 2. Identify high-impact opportunities within Ads-FM program and lead the ideation, planning, and execution of science initiatives to address them. 3. Build and deploy machine learning models using computer vision, natural language processing, and deep learning to evaluate and enhance ad effectiveness. 4. Develop algorithms that extract meaningful signals from image, video, and audio content to predict and improve customer engagement 5. Leverage Amazon's extensive data repository to create predictive models that generate actionable recommendations for more compelling ad creative 6. Collaborate with business leaders and cross-functional teams to implement ML-powered solutions 7. Contribute to the ML roadmap for the Ads-FM program through innovation and research.
US, TX, Austin
Amazon Leo is an initiative to launch a constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites providing low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world. As a Communication Systems Research Scientist, this role owns the research and system design of the radio resource management (RRM) and radio access layers of Amazon Leo’s direct-to-device (D2D) system, delivering 3GPP-compliant service to unmodified commercial handsets. The Role: Be part of the team defining the communication system and architecture of Amazon’s direct-to-device wireless network and analyzing its system level performance: beam and cell capacity, spectral efficiency, coverage, latency and service availability. This is a unique opportunity to innovate with few legacy constraints, in a segment where the standard itself is still being written. This role leads the research and system design of radio resource management (RRM) for a 3GPP Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN), where D2D upends terrestrial assumptions: a power-limited handset with a near-isotropic antenna, very large cells, hopping beams, large time-varying delay and Doppler, and scarce shared spectrum. RRM in time, frequency and spatial domains is the focus, but the role reasons across the stack, from L1/L2 up through RRC, NAS and 5GC interworking. Agentic AI is expected to be a standard part of the work for development, optimization, tests and debugging, with the scientist accountable for the algorithms, models and conclusions. Export Control Requirement: Due to applicable export control laws and regulations, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum. Key job responsibilities • Research, design and specify RRM algorithms for Amazon Leo’s 3GPP-based D2D system: MAC scheduling, link adaptation, power control, HARQ strategy, DRX, admission and congestion control, and load balancing, mapping 5QI and QoS flow requirements to scheduler behavior across voice, messaging, emergency and data services. • Treat beam management as part of joint resource optimization, not a standalone process, optimizing it with band assignment, packet scheduling and user pairing in multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO). • Define the RRM framework for NTN conditions: earth-fixed and earth-moving cells, large time-varying propagation delay, ephemeris-assisted timing and Doppler pre-compensation, extended timing advance, selective HARQ feedback disabling, feeder link and satellite handovers, and interference and spectrum sharing across beams, satellites and terrestrial networks using the same MNO spectrum. • Design mobility and service continuity for a network where the base stations (i.e., satellites) move rather than the user: idle and connected mode mobility, location and time based conditional handover, cell reselection, paging, tracking area design, and NTN-to-terrestrial continuity. • Specify supporting L1/L2 elements with the PHY team: numerology under Doppler, PRACH and initial access, coverage enhancement through repetition, synchronization at low SNR, receiver abstraction, and FEC and BLER modeling for link adaptation. • Keep the radio design coherent with the networking layers: RRC and NAS, RLC and PDCP over long-RTT links, CU/DU split, NTN gateway and 5GC/EPC integration, and transport behavior. • Develop link-level and system-level simulators capturing constellation dynamics, beam patterns, handset characteristics, traffic models and RRM behavior, and use agentic AI across that loop: build and refactor simulation code, scale parameter sweeps, optimize scheduler and link adaptation parameters, explore configuration spaces too large to sweep by hand, maintain regression tests, and triage failures across logs, traces and over-the-air captures. • Translate research into system requirements and implementation-level specifications, and work with modem, payload, ground, RF, ASIC and Testbed teams through integration, field trials and link bring-up, root-causing gaps between simulation, implementation and over-the-air behavior in a fast-paced environment. • Represent Amazon Leo in 3GPP and other standards development organizations, develop and defend contributions on NTN and D2D work items, and contribute patents and publications.