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Amazon today publicly announced 74 recipients from the Amazon Research Awards Fall 2021 call for proposals. The recipients, who represent 51 universities in 17 countries, have access to more than 300 Amazon public datasets, and can utilize AWS AI/ML services and tools.

75 Amazon Research Awards recipients announced

The awardees represent 52 universities in 17 countries. Recipients have access to more than 300 Amazon public datasets, and can utilize AWS AI/ML services and tools.

By Amazon Research Awards team
July 18, 2022
8 min read
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The Amazon Research Awards is a program that provides unrestricted funds and AWS Promotional Credits to academic researchers investigating research topics across a number of disciplines.

Today, we’re publicly announcing 75 award recipients who represent 52 universities in 17 countries. Each award is intended to support the work of one to two graduate students or postdoctoral students for one year, under the supervision of a faculty member.

Top row, left to right: Aws Albarghouthi, Nada Amin, Clark Barrett, Ivan Beschastnikh, William Bowman, Yinzhi Cao, Trevor Carlson, Marsha Chechik; second row, left to right: Cas Cremers, Derek Dreyer, Marcelo Frias, Sicun Gao, Roberto Giacobazzi, Ronghui Gu, Jean-Baptiste Jeannin, Steve Ko; third row, left to right: James Noble, Rohan Padhye, Pavithra Prabhakar, Francesco Ranzato, Talia Ringer, Camilo Rocha, Andrei Sabelfeld, Ilya Sergey; and bottom row, left to right: Michele Sevegnani, Fu Song, Zhendong Su, Daniel Varro, Yakir Vizel, Thomas Wies, Anton Wijs, and Meng Xu.
Top row, left to right: Aws Albarghouthi, Nada Amin, Clark Barrett, Ivan Beschastnikh, William Bowman, Yinzhi Cao, Trevor Carlson, Marsha Chechik; second row, left to right: Cas Cremers, Derek Dreyer, Marcelo Frias, Sicun Gao, Roberto Giacobazzi, Ronghui Gu, Jean-Baptiste Jeannin, Steve Ko; third row, left to right: James Noble, Rohan Padhye, Pavithra Prabhakar, Francesco Ranzato, Talia Ringer, Camilo Rocha, Andrei Sabelfeld, Ilya Sergey; and bottom row, left to right: Michele Sevegnani, Fu Song, Zhendong Su, Daniel Varro, Yakir Vizel, Thomas Wies, Anton Wijs, and Meng Xu are among the recipients from the Amazon Research Awards Fall 2021 call for proposals under the Automated Reasoning CFP.

This announcement includes awards funded under seven call for proposals during the Fall 2021 cycle: AI for Information Security, Amazon Device Security and Privacy, Amazon Payments, AWS Automated Reasoning, Data for Social Sustainability, Prime Video, and Robotics. Proposals were reviewed for the quality of their scientific content, their creativity, and their potential to impact both the research community and society more generally. Theoretical advances, creative new ideas, and practical applications were all considered.

Top row, left to right: Nora Ayanian, Nicola Bezzo, Luca Carlone, Venanzio Cichella, Jia Deng, Nima Fazeli, Maani Ghaffari-Jadidi; second row, left to right: Grace Gu, Leonidas Guibas, Felix Heide, Ralph Hollis, Robert Katzschmann, Sven Koenig, George Konidaris; third row, left to right: Sergey Levine, Jennifer Lewis, Maja Matarić, Jan Peters, Lerrel Pinto, Robert Platt, Nancy Pollard; and bottom row, left to right: Alessandro Rizzo, Oren Salzman, Roland Siegwart, Pratap Tokekar, James Wang, Shenlong Wang, and Yuke Zhu.
Top row, left to right: Nora Ayanian, Nicola Bezzo, Luca Carlone, Venanzio Cichella, Jia Deng, Nima Fazeli, Maani Ghaffari-Jadidi; second row, left to right: Grace Gu, Leonidas Guibas, Felix Heide, Ralph Hollis, Robert Katzschmann, Sven Koenig, George Konidaris; third row, left to right: Sergey Levine, Jennifer Lewis, Maja Matarić, Jan Peters, Lerrel Pinto, Robert Platt, Nancy Pollard; and bottom row, left to right: Alessandro Rizzo, Oren Salzman, Roland Siegwart, Pratap Tokekar, James Wang, Shenlong Wang, and Yuke Zhu are among the recipients from the Amazon Research Awards Fall 2021 call for proposals under the Robotics CFP.

Recipients have access to more than 300 Amazon public datasets and can utilize AWS AI/ML services and tools through their AWS Promotional Credits. Recipients also are assigned an Amazon research contact who offers consultation and advice, along with opportunities to participate in Amazon events and training sessions.

Additionally, Amazon encourages the publication of research results, presentations of research at Amazon offices worldwide, and the release of related code under open-source licenses.

Top row, left to right:NAMES; second row, left to right:NAMES are among the recipients from the Amazon Research Awards Winter 2022 call for proposals under the Alexa: Fairness in AI CFP.
Top row, left to right:NAMES; second row, left to right:NAMES are among the recipients from the Amazon Research Awards Winter 2022 call for proposals under the Alexa: Fairness in AI CFP.

"Research in automated reasoning is deeply intertwined with a broad range of other research areas, touching machine learning, hardware and software engineering, robotics, and life sciences," said Daniel Kroening, an Automated Reasoning Group senior principal scientist. "The 2021 Amazon Research Awards reflect this breadth, and the interdisciplinary nature of research that is necessary to take computing one step closer to that magic spark that drives human reasoning."

ARA funds proposals up to four times a year in a variety of research areas. Applicants are encouraged to visit the ARA call for proposals page for more information or send an email to be notified of future open calls.

The table below lists, in alphabetical order, Fall 2021 cycle call-for-proposal recipients.

Recipient

University

Research title

Aws Albarghouthi

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Teaching SMT Solvers Probability Theory

Nada Amin

Harvard University

Extensible Models and Proofs

Nora Ayanian

Brown University

Large-Scale Labeled Multi-Agent Pathfinding for Warehouses

Clark Barrett

Stanford University

HydraScale: Solving SMT Queries in the Serverless Cloud

Ivan Beschastnikh

University of British Columbia

Compiling Distributed System Models into Implementations

Nicola Bezzo

University of Virginia

Towards Safe and Agile Robot Navigation in Occluding and Dynamic Environments

William Bowman

University of British Columbia

Static reasoning for memory in compilers and intermediate languages

Yinzhi Cao

Johns Hopkins University

Automatic Static Resource Analysis for Serverless Computing

Luca Carlone

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Real-time Spatial AI for Robotics

Trevor Carlson

National University of Singapore

Accelerating SAT Solving with a Flexible FPGA-Programming Platform

Marsha Chechik

University Of Toronto

Unsatisfiability Proofs for Monotonic Theories

Venanzio Cichella

University Of Iowa

Concurrent allocation and planning for large-scale multi-robot systems

Cas Cremers

CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security

KeyLife: Automated Formal Analysis for Key Lifecycles in Security Protocols with Policies, Delegation, and Compromise

Elizabeth Croft

Monash University

Help me!: Humans supporting robots through Augmented Reality

Jia Deng

Princeton University

Optimization-Inspired Neural Networks for Visual SLAM

Derek Dreyer

MPI - SWS

RefinedRust: Automating the Verification of Rust Programs in the Presence of Unsafe Code

Tudor Dumitras

University of Maryland, College Park

Mitigating the impact of behavior variability and label noise on ML-based malware detectors

Nima Fazeli

University of Michigan

Object Manipulation with High-Resolution Tactile Sensors

Earlence Fernandes

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Verifiable Distributed Computation

Marcelo Frias

Buenos Aires Institute of Technology

Modular Bounded Verification with Expressive Contracts

Sicun Gao

University of California, San Diego

Interior Search Methods in SMT

Maani Ghaffari-Jadidi

University of Michigan

Robust low-cost dead reckoning and localization for home robotics using invariant state estimation

Roberto Giacobazzi

University of Verona

Implicit program analysis

Ronghui Gu

Columbia University

Learning Inductive Invariants for Real Distributed Protocols

Grace Gu

University of California, Berkeley

Deep learning-enabled robust grasping for pneumatic actuators

Leonidas Guibas

Stanford University

GeneralPurpose 3D Perception of Object Functionality

Arie Gurfinkel

University of Waterloo

Formal Proofs for Trusted Execution Environments

Hamed Haddadi

Imperial College London

Auditable Model Privacy using TEEs

Felix Heide

Princeton University

Inverse Neural Rendering

Ralph Hollis

Carnegie Mellon University

Low Cost Dynamic Mobile Robots for Research and Teaching

Hongxin Hu

SUNY, Buffalo

Explaining Learning-based Intrusion Detection Systems for Active Intrusion Responses

Jean-Baptiste Jeannin

University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

Automatic Verification of Distributed Systems Implementations

Robert Katzschmann

ETH Zurich

Design and Control Optimization of Soft Gripper Mechanisms for Manipulation

Anirudh Sivaraman Kaushalram

New York University

Observing and controlling microservice deployments

Steve Ko

Simon Fraser University

Practical Symbolic Execution for Rust

Sven Koenig

University of Southern California

Hybrid Search- and Traffic-Based MAPF Systems for Fulfillment Centers

George Konidaris

Brown University

Learning Composable Manipulation Skills

Emmanuel Letouzé

Pompeu Fabra University

Leveraging Digital Data for Monitoring Human Rights and Social Dynamics Along and Around Value Chains

Sergey Levine

University of California, Berkeley

Robotic Learning with Reusable Data

Jennifer Lewis

Harvard University

Computational Co-Design of Dexterous Rigid-Soft Grippers With Intrinsic Tactile-Sensing-Based Control

Maja Matarić

University of Southern California

Learning User Preferences for In-Home Robots Through In Situ Augmented Reality

James Noble

Victoria University Of Wellington

“Programming Made Hard” Made Easier: Improving Dafny’s Human Factors

Rohan Padhye

Carnegie Mellon University

Coverage-Guided Property-Based Testing of Concurrent Programs

Jan Peters

TU Darmstadt

Learning Robot Manipulation from Tactile Feedback

Lerrel Pinto

New York University

Visual Imitation in the Wild through Decoupled Representation Learning

Robert Platt

Northeastern University

On-robot manipulation learning via equivariant models

Nancy Pollard

Carnegie Mellon

Contact Areas for Manipulation Capture, Retargeting, and Hand Design

Pavithra Prabhakar

Kansas State University

Conformance Checking of Evolving ML Software Systems

Francesco Ranzato

University of Verona

Implicit program analysis

Sanjay Rao

Purdue University

Answering counterfactuals from offline data for video streaming

Bruno Ribeiro

Purdue University

Answering counterfactuals from offline data for video streaming

Talia Ringer

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Neurosymbolic Proof Synthesis & Repair

Alessandro Rizzo

Politecnico di Torino

Physics-Informed Machine Learning for Trustworthy Control of Autonomous Robots

Camilo Rocha

Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali

Probabilistic and Symbolic Tools for P Program Verification

Andrei Sabelfeld

Chalmers University of Technology

DeepCrawl: Automated Reasoning for Deep Web Crawling

Oren Salzman

Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Increasing throughput in automated warehouses via environment manipulation

Ilya Sergey

National University of Singapore

Scaling Automated Verification of Distributed Protocols with Specification Transformation and Synthesis

Michele Sevegnani

University of Glasgow

From Whiteboards to Models: Diagrammatic Formal Modelling for Everyone

Roland Siegwart

ETH Zurich

Autonomous Navigation of Aerial Robotic Manipulators in Unstructured Indoor and Outdoor Environments

Ramesh Sitaraman

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Design and Evaluation of ABR Algorithms for High-Performance Video Delivery

Fu Song

ShanghaiTech University

Efficient and Precise Verification for Constant-Time and Time-Balancing of Cryptosystems

Zhendong Su

ETH Zurich

Practical Techniques for Reliable, Robust and Performant SMT Solvers

Jiliang Tang

Michigan State University

Taming Graph Anomaly Detection via Graph Neural Networks

Pratap Tokekar

University of Maryland, College Park

Multi-Robot Coordination through the Lens of Risk

Daniel Varro

McGill University

Graph Solver as a Service

Yakir Vizel

Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Quantified Invariants

David Wagner

University of California, Berkeley

Machine Learning for Malware Detection: Robustness against Concept Drift

James Wang

Pennsylvania State University

Affective and Social Interaction between Human and Intelligent Machine in Daily Activities

Shenlong Wang

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Safely Test Autonomous Vehicles with Augmented Reality

Thomas Wies

New York University

A Modular Library of Verified Concurrent Search Structure Algorithms

Anton Wijs

Eindhoven University of Technology

Many-Core Acceleration of State Space Construction and Analysis

Xinyu Xing

Northwestern University

Battling Noisy-label Classification

Meng Xu

University Of Waterloo

Finding Specification Blind Spots with Fuzz Testing

Yuke Zhu

University of Texas at Austin

Interactive Learning Framework for Building Structured Object Models from Play

Andrew Zisserman

University of Oxford

Audio-Visual Synchronisation for General Videos
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Member of Technical Staff - Firmware Engineer, Robotics, Frontier AI & Robotics
US, CA, San Francisco
Join Amazon's Frontier AI & Robotics team and help shape the future of intelligent robotic systems from the inside out. As a Member of Technical Staff - Firmware Engineer, Electronics, you will develop the low-level firmware that brings our in-house robotic actuators to life—writing the embedded code that bridges sophisticated hardware and the high-level AI control systems that power our next-generation robots. Your work will directly enable our robots to see, reason, and act in real-world warehouse environments, making you a critical contributor to one of the most ambitious robotics programs in the world. Key job responsibilities • Develop, test, and optimize embedded firmware for custom in-house robotic actuators, including motor control algorithms (FOC, commutation, current/torque/speed/position loops) running on microcontrollers and DSPs • Design and implement real-time firmware for actuator state estimation, fault detection, and protection logic, ensuring robust and safe operation across all actuator variants deployed in FAR's robotic systems • Collaborate with electronics engineers and motor design engineers to define firmware requirements, hardware interfaces (SPI, I2C, CAN, EtherCAT, RS-485), and actuator bring-up procedures for new hardware revisions • Develop and maintain firmware for field-oriented control (FOC) and sensored/sensorless motor commutation, including tuning current regulators, velocity controllers, and position controllers for high-performance robots • Build and maintain firmware test frameworks and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test environments to validate firmware behavior across actuator operating conditions, edge cases, and failure modes • Partner with controls engineers and AI researchers to ensure firmware-level interfaces support high-bandwidth, low-latency communication required by whole-body control and motion planning algorithms • Contribute to actuator firmware architecture decisions, define software-hardware interface standards, and maintain firmware documentation and version control practices to enable scalable multi-actuator development • Support rapid hardware bring-up and debugging of new actuator prototypes, leveraging oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and custom diagnostic tools to characterize and validate firmware behavior on novel hardware A day in the life Your day is rooted in the intersection of hardware and software where you’ll be wiring firmware from scratch to control custom motors. You might start your morning reviewing firmware behavior logs from the previous night's actuator characterization runs, then spend time working alongside motor design and electronics engineers to debug a torque ripple issue in the motor control loop. In the afternoon, you could be writing and validating embedded firmware for a new actuator variant, tuning (field-oriented control) FOC algorithms, and collaborating with the controls team to ensure firmware interfaces align with high-level motion planning requirements. Beyond the bench, you'll participate in architecture reviews with hardware and software engineers, contribute to code reviews, and document firmware specifications that enable smooth hardware handoffs. You'll be working on actuator variants—each with unique power, torque, and speed requirements—and you'll be the firmware voice in cross-functional design discussions that shape how our actuators are built and controlled. The pace is fast, the problems are novel, and the impact is direct. About the team Frontier AI & Robotics (FAR) is the team at Amazon building the next generation of embodied intelligence. FAR drives the development and implementation of advanced AI models within Amazon’s operations that enable robots to see, reason, and act on the world around them, supporting a number of different warehouse automation tasks.
Lab Engineer, Frontier AI & Robotics
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Join our Frontier AI & Robotics team to support the hardware integration of next-generation robotic systems that will transform how robots perceive and interact with the world. You'll take ownership of hands-on hardware assembly, software integration, and system validation tasks across advanced actuators, precision sensors, and robotic subsystems — ensuring they work seamlessly together to support breakthrough AI research and real-world deployment. Key job responsibilities - Assembly, Integration & DFx — Assemble and integrate robotic hardware (actuators, sensors, vision systems, machined components). Execute assembly processes and test protocols developed with engineering. Provide DFM/DFA feedback and perform simple mechanical/electrical/software design tasks; support integration/debug and partner with engineers to optimize manufacturability and testability. - R&D Prototype Test & Validation — Validate hardware revisions, verify mechanical assemblies, power sequencing, communication interfaces, and peripherals during bring-up. - Debugging & Failure Analysis — Troubleshoot and root-cause issues across the robotic platform (power, compute, comms, actuators, sensors). Conduct failure analysis from component to system level. Reproduce critical failures, interpret schematics, and bridge communication between the lab and engineering teams. - Technical Documentation — Author and maintain runbooks, failure analysis reports, assembly guides, and troubleshooting guides; uphold consistent documentation standards across the lab. - Mechanical Design Support — Perform simple R&D design tasks and test fixture design in CAD, ensuring quality and alignment with engineering priorities. - Lab Operations Support — Support machine shop capabilities, equipment maintenance, inventory management, vendor coordination, and safety/regulatory compliance. - Test Capability Development — Develop test methodologies, design jigs/fixtures, support hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing, and streamline failure-to-resolution workflows. A day in the life Your focus centers on the hardware and software that powers our advanced robotic platforms. You'll execute high degree-of-freedom (DoF) robotic prototype assembly and validation, working alongside engineers and fellow technicians. Your responsibilities include building, debugging, validating prototype, performing critical component and assembly quality assessments, providing DFM/DFA feedback to engineers, and designing test jigs and fixtures. Throughout the day, you balance complex assemblies and integration testing while handling urgent prototyping requests, documentation updates, and preparation for upcoming milestones. You're switching between working at the bench, collaborating in design reviews with engineers, and ensuring lab safety and equipment maintenance. About the team At Frontier AI & Robotics, we're not just advancing robotics – we're reimagining it from the ground up. Our team is building the future of intelligent robotics through frontier foundation models and end-to-end learned systems. We tackle some of the most challenging problems in AI and robotics, from developing sophisticated perception systems to creating adaptive manipulation strategies that work in complex, real-world scenarios. What sets us apart is our unique combination of ambitious research vision and practical impact. We leverage Amazon's computational infrastructure and rich real-world datasets to train and deploy state-of-the-art foundation models. Our work spans the full spectrum of robotics intelligence – from multimodal perception using images, videos, and sensor data, to sophisticated manipulation strategies that can handle diverse real-world scenarios. We're building systems that don't just work in the lab, but scale to meet the demands of Amazon's global operations. Join us if you're excited about pushing the boundaries of what's possible in robotics, working with world-class researchers, and seeing your innovations deployed at unprecedented scale.
Member of Technical Staff - Technical Program Manager, Frontier AI & Robotics
US, CA, San Francisco
Join Amazon's Frontier AI & Robotics team as a Member of Technical Staff, this Technical Program Manager will become the driving force behind breakthrough robotics innovation. You'll orchestrate complex, cross-functional programs that bridge AI research, software, hardware, and production deployment—managing the technical workstreams that enable robots to see, reason, and act in Amazon's warehouse environments. Your program leadership will directly accelerate our mission to build the next generation of embodied intelligence. Key job responsibilities · Establish and drive program management mechanisms and cadence for complex robotics and AI development initiatives spanning research, software engineering, hardware, and operations · Manage end-to-end program execution across the full robotics stack—including AI models, software engineering, and hardware deployment · Drive decision-making velocity by facilitating tradeoff discussions when there are conflicting priorities; determine whether decisions are one-way or two-way doors · Own program-level risk management, proactively identifying technical, schedule, and resource risks; escalate where necessary and drive mitigation strategies · Manage dependencies and scope changes across internal teams and partner organizations, ensuring alignment on commitments, timelines, and technical requirements · Create transparency through clear RACI frameworks, program dashboards, and communication mechanisms that keep stakeholders aligned on status, risks, and decisions · Exercise strong technical judgment to influence program-level decisions on deployment methodology, scalability requirements, and technical feasibility—acting as the voice back to research and engineering teams · Build sustainable program management processes that scale as our organization grows, adapting agile frameworks to the unique challenges of AI robotics A day in the life Your focus centers on driving velocity and alignment across our robotics programs. You might start your morning facilitating tradeoff decisions between AI researchers and software engineers on a critical prototype milestone, then transition to managing dependencies across hardware and operations teams to keep timelines on track. In the afternoon, you could be conducting risk assessments on supply chain constraints that impact our development roadmap, updating program dashboards to provide leadership visibility, or working with partner teams to align on deployment strategies. You'll establish the mechanisms and cadence that keep our fast-moving organization synchronized—from sprint planning rituals to cross-functional design reviews. Throughout the day, you balance hands-on program execution with strategic escalation, ensuring technical decisions align with our long-term vision while removing obstacles that slow teams down. You're the connective tissue that enables researchers, engineers, and operations specialists to move fast together. About the team At Frontier AI & Robotics, we're not just advancing robotics – we're reimagining it from the ground up. Our team is building the future of intelligent robotics through frontier foundation models and end-to-end learned systems. We tackle some of the most challenging problems in AI and robotics, from developing sophisticated perception systems to creating adaptive manipulation strategies that work in complex, real-world scenarios. What sets us apart is our unique combination of ambitious research vision and practical impact. We leverage Amazon's computational infrastructure and rich real-world datasets to train and deploy state-of-the-art foundation models. Our work spans the full spectrum of robotics intelligence – from multimodal perception using images, videos, and sensor data, to sophisticated manipulation strategies that can handle diverse real-world scenarios. We're building systems that don't just work in the lab, but scale to meet the demands of Amazon's global operations. Join us if you're excited about pushing the boundaries of what's possible in robotics, working with world-class researchers, and seeing your innovations deployed at unprecedented scale.
Member of Technical Staff - Robotics Electrical Engineer, Frontier AI & Robotics
US, CA, San Francisco
We are seeking a hands-on Electrical Engineer to lead the design and integration of electrical systems or subsystems for high-degree-of-freedom robotic platforms. This role involves architecting the robot’s power distribution, sensor wiring, and embedded electrical infrastructure. You will be responsible for designing across the full electrical system for advanced robotics platforms including power distribution, sensing, compute, motor controllers, communication infrastructure, battery system and power electronics in close collaboration with mechanical, controls and software engineers. You’ll play a key role in ensuring high-performance, reliable operation of complex electromechanical systems under real-world conditions. Key job responsibilities * Electrical system architect / owner for power electronics, actuation, PCBAs, battery, ware harness specs and high speed electrical/communications protocols * Design, develop and integrate power distribution, embedded electronics, motor controllers and safety-critical circuits for complex robotic systems * Own board layout of PCBAs including SoCs, microcontrollers, sensors, power devices, etc. using Cadence OrCAD/Allegro or equivalent tools. Oversee bring-up and validation * Determine appropriate high speed electrical and communication protocols (e.g., CAN, EtherCAT, USB, etc) for reliable and efficient system operation * Specify and design custom power electronics and power distribution boards to meet performance, thermal, and safety requirements * Design and route all cabling and wire harnesses across the robotic platform, considering EMI, signal integrity, serviceability, and integration with mechanical structures * Architect and integrate the robot’s battery system, including protection circuitry, battery management, charging systems, and thermal considerations * Define and implement wiring and electrical interfaces for sensors (e.g., lidar, stereo cameras, IMUs, tactile) and compute modules * Ownership over prototyping and bringing up electrical designs and creation of test & validation rigs About the team At Frontier AI & Robotics, we're not just advancing robotics – we're reimagining it from the ground up. Our team is building the future of intelligent robotics through innovative foundation models and end-to-end learned systems. We tackle some of the most challenging problems in AI and robotics, from developing sophisticated perception systems to creating adaptive manipulation strategies that work in complex, real-world scenarios. What sets us apart is our unique combination of ambitious research vision and practical impact. We leverage Amazon's massive computational infrastructure and rich real-world datasets to train and deploy state-of-the-art foundation models. Our work spans the full spectrum of robotics intelligence – from multimodal perception using images, videos, and sensor data, to sophisticated manipulation strategies that can handle diverse real-world scenarios. We're building systems that don't just work in the lab, but scale to meet the demands of Amazon's global operations. Join us if you're excited about pushing the boundaries of what's possible in robotics, working with world-class researchers, and seeing your innovations deployed at unprecedented scale.
Technical Lab Manager - Robotics R&D, Frontier AI & Robotics
US, CA, San Francisco
Join our Frontier AI & Robotics team to lead the hardware integration of next-generation robotic systems that will transform how robots perceive and interact with the world. You'll take ownership of critical hardware components, from advanced actuators to precision sensors, ensuring they work seamlessly together to support breakthrough AI research and real-world deployment. Key job responsibilities - Prototype Lab Leadership — Lead & develop a cross-functional technician team supporting robotic prototype hardware; own daily priorities, team KPIs, and risk communication to FAR leadership. Serve as the technical escalation point for the lab. - Assembly, Integration & DFx ownership — Assemble & integrate robotic hardware (actuators, sensors, vision, machined components). Build assembly processes and test protocols with hardware engineering. Drive DFM/DFA feedback and own simple mechanical/electrical design tasks, lead integration/debug, and partner with engineers to optimize manufacturability and testability. - Own R&D prototype test & validation — Validate hardware revisions, verify mechanical assemblies, power sequencing, comms interfaces, and peripherals during bring-up. - Build a strong debugging & failure analysis function — Troubleshoot & root-cause across the full robot platform (power, compute, comms, actuators, sensors); hands-on for complex issues, directing the team on routine ones. Conduct failure analysis from component to system level using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and multimeters; train technicians on diagnostic techniques. Reproduce critical failures, interpret schematics, and bridge communication between the lab and engineering teams. - Own lab technical documentation — Own documentation & quality - author runbooks, FA reports, assembly guides and troubleshooting guides; mentor the team to maintain consistent standards. - Own mechanical design for the lab — Own mechanical design technician output. Oversee technicians performing simple R&D design tasks and test fixture design, ensuring quality and alignment with engineering priorities. - Manage prototyping lab operations — oversee machine shop capabilities and quality, equipment/inventory, vendor coordination, and safety/regulatory compliance. - Build additional lab capabilities — develop test methodologies, design jigs/fixtures, implement HIL testing, and streamline failure-to-resolution workflows. A day in the life Your focus centers on the hardware that powers our advanced robotic platforms. You'll lead a strong robotics technician and lab engineering team to support high degrees of freedom (DoF) robotic hardware prototype assembly and validation. Your team will be responsible for building, debugging and validating prototype hardware, critical component and assembly quality assessments, providing DFM/DFA feedback to engineers and designing test jigs and test set-ups. You’ll manage responsibilities like quality inspections of incoming parts, one-on-ones with technicians, and coordinating machine shop operations. Throughout the day, you balance leading your team through complex assemblies and integration testing while also handling urgent prototyping requests, documentation updates, and planning for upcoming milestones. You're switching between working at the bench alongside your technicians, collaborating in design reviews with engineers, and ensuring lab safety and equipment maintenance. About the team At Frontier AI & Robotics, we're not just advancing robotics – we're reimagining it from the ground up. Our team is building the future of intelligent robotics through frontier foundation models and end-to-end learned systems. We tackle some of the most challenging problems in AI and robotics, from developing sophisticated perception systems to creating adaptive manipulation strategies that work in complex, real-world scenarios. What sets us apart is our unique combination of ambitious research vision and practical impact. We leverage Amazon's computational infrastructure and rich real-world datasets to train and deploy state-of-the-art foundation models. Our work spans the full spectrum of robotics intelligence – from multimodal perception using images, videos, and sensor data, to sophisticated manipulation strategies that can handle diverse real-world scenarios. We're building systems that don't just work in the lab, but scale to meet the demands of Amazon's global operations. Join us if you're excited about pushing the boundaries of what's possible in robotics, working with world-class researchers, and seeing your innovations deployed at unprecedented scale.
Member of Technical Staff - Electronics Engineer, Actuators & Drives, Frontier AI & Robotics
US, CA, San Francisco
Join Amazon's Frontier AI & Robotics team and take ownership of the electronics that make our robots move. As a Member of Technical Staff - Electronics Engineer, Actuators & Drives, you will conceptualize, design, and test the motor drive electronics that power our in-house robotic actuators—from the gate drivers and power stages that command motor current to the sensing circuits and communication interfaces that give our robots proprioceptive awareness. Your printed circuit board (PCB) designs will live inside each of our next-generation robotic systems, directly enabling the embodied intelligence that is central to FAR's mission. Key job responsibilities • Conceptualize, design, and validate motor drive electronics for in-house robotic actuators, including inverter power stages, gate driver circuits, current and position sensing, and power management subsystems from concept through prototype and production • Lead PCB-level design of compact, high-power-density motor drive boards, including schematic capture, component selection, and collaboration with PCB layout engineers to achieve signal integrity, thermal, and EMC requirements in constrained actuator form factors • Characterize and optimize inverter switching performance, efficiency, and thermal behavior across the full operating envelope of FAR's actuator variants, using bench measurements and simulation to guide design decisions • Define and implement current sensing architectures (shunt-based, Hall-effect, or integrated IC-based) and position/velocity sensing interfaces (encoder, resolver, Hall sensor) to support high-bandwidth FOC firmware on microcontrollers and DSPs • Partner with firmware engineers to define hardware-software interfaces for motor drive control loops, fault detection logic, and communication protocols (CAN, EtherCAT, SPI), ensuring electronics designs support the real-time control requirements of robotic actuation • Collaborate with motor design and mechanical engineers to specify the electrical characteristics of custom BLDC and PMSM motors, align inverter design to motor parameters, and validate the integrated actuator electro-mechanical system • Lead hardware bring-up, functional testing, and failure analysis for new actuator electronics prototypes, developing test plans and characterization setups that systematically validate design performance and identify failure modes • Define electronics design standards, review processes, and design-for-manufacturability (DFM) guidelines for FAR's actuator drive portfolio, and mentor junior engineers in motor drive electronics design best practices A day in the life Your day centers on the full electronics development cycle for our custom actuator drive systems. You might start by reviewing simulation results for a new inverter topology, then transition to the lab to characterize switching losses and thermal performance on a prototype motor drive board. Later in the day, you could be collaborating with motor design engineers on back-EMF waveform analysis, refining gate drive timing to optimize inverter efficiency, or working with firmware engineers to define current sensing interfaces and hardware abstraction layers. Across the week, you'll be involved in schematic capture and PCB layout reviews with your design team, participating in design review gates, and iterating on hardware based on test findings. You'll navigate the challenge of fitting high-performance drive electronics into compact, thermally constrained actuator packages—designing for the power density, reliability, and robustness our robots demand. Your work will span from concept and architecture through silicon bring-up, and you'll play a key role in defining the electronics roadmap for FAR's actuator portfolio. About the team Frontier AI & Robotics (FAR) is the team at Amazon building the next generation of embodied intelligence. FAR drives the development and implementation of advanced AI models within Amazon’s operations that enable robots to see, reason, and act on the world around them, supporting a number of different warehouse automation tasks.
Member of Technical Staff - Robotics Mechanical Engineer, Frontier AI & Robotics
US, CA, San Francisco
About the Role: We are looking for a Member of Technical Staff - Mechanical Engineer with a passion for building complex robotic systems from the ground up. This role is ideal for someone with a deep understanding of structural and electromechanical design, who thrives in hands-on environments and has experience taking high-performance robots from concept to production. You will work on the mechanical and system architecture of advanced robotics platforms, including high degree-of-freedom systems, where considerations such as actuator selection, thermal constraints, cabling, sensing integration, and manufacturability are critical. This is a cross-disciplinary role requiring close collaboration with electrical, software, and AI research teams. Beyond day-to-day hardware development, this role also provides exciting avenues to contribute to innovative research projects. Whether you’re interested in mechatronics, sensor integration, or novel actuation methods, you’ll find opportunities to explore your research interests while building real-world systems that advance in the field of high degree-of-freedom robotics. What You Bring: * A systems-thinking mindset with a strong grasp of cross-domain engineering tradeoffs. * A bias toward action: comfortable building, testing, and iterating rapidly. * A collaborative and communicative working style — especially in multi-disciplinary research environments. * A passion for robotics and advancing the state of the art in intelligent, capable machines. Key job responsibilities * Lead mechanical design of robotic subsystems and full platforms, including structures, joints, enclosures, and mechanisms for a research environment. * Own kinematic, dynamic, and structural analyses to guide the design and optimization of full systems and subsystems of high-DoF robots * Specify and integrate actuators and motors for high-torque density applications in high-degree-of-freedom systems. * Contribute to thermal management strategies for motors, sensors, and embedded compute hardware. * Integrate sensors such as lidar, stereo cameras, IMUs, tactile sensors, and compute modules into compact, functional assemblies. * Design and route cabling and wire harnesses, ensuring reliability, serviceability, and thermal/electrical integrity. * Prototype and test mechanical systems; support hands-on builds, debug sessions, and field testing. * Conduct root cause analysis on system-level failures or performance issues and implement design improvements. * Apply Design for Manufacturing (DFM) and Design for Assembly (DFA) principles to transition prototypes into scalable builds (10s–100s of units). * Collaborate with cross-functional teams in electrical engineering, controls, perception, and research to meet research and product goals. About the team Frontier AI & Robotics (FAR) is the team at Amazon building the next generation of embodied intelligence. FAR drives the development and implementation of advanced AI models within Amazon’s operations that enable robots to see, reason, and act on the world around them, supporting a number of different warehouse automation tasks.
Applied Scientist III, Whole Body Control
US, MA, N.reading
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 revolutionary robotic systems that combine cutting-edge AI, sophisticated control systems, and advanced mechanical design to create adaptable automation solutions capable of working safely alongside humans in dynamic environments. This is a unique 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 dexterous manipulation, locomotion, and human-robot interaction. This role presents an opportunity to shape the future of robotics through innovative applications of deep learning and large language models. At Amazon we leverage advanced robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to solve complex operational challenges at an unprecedented scale. Our fleet of robots operates across hundreds of facilities worldwide, working in sophisticated coordination to fulfill our mission of customer excellence. The ideal candidate will contribute to research that bridges the gap between theoretical advancement and practical implementation in robotics. You will be part of a team that's revolutionizing how robots learn, adapt, and interact with their environment. Join us in building the next generation of intelligent robotics systems that will transform the future of automation and human-robot collaboration. Key job responsibilities - Design and implement whole body control methods for balance, locomotion, and dexterous manipulation - Utilize state-of-the-art in methods in learned and model-based control - Create robust and safe behaviors for different terrains and tasks - Implement real-time controllers with stability guarantees - Collaborate effectively with multi-disciplinary teams to co-design hardware and algorithms for loco-manipulation - Mentor junior engineer and scientists
Applied Scientist II, Foundation Model, Robotics
US, CA, San Francisco
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 revolutionary robotic systems that combine cutting-edge AI, sophisticated control systems, and advanced mechanical design to create adaptable automation solutions capable of working safely alongside humans in dynamic environments. This is a unique opportunity to shape the future of robotics and automation at unprecedented scale, working with world-class teams pushing the boundaries of what's possible in robotic manipulation, locomotion, and human-robot interaction. This role presents an opportunity to shape the future of robotics through innovative applications of deep learning and large language models. The ideal candidate will contribute to research that bridges the gap between theoretical advancement and practical implementation in robotics. You will be part of a team that's revolutionizing how robots learn, adapt, and interact with their environment. Join us in building the next generation of intelligent robotics systems that will transform the future of automation and human-robot collaboration. As an Applied Scientist, you will develop and improve machine learning systems that help robots perceive, reason, and act in real-world environments. You will leverage state-of-the-art models (open source and internal research), evaluate them on representative tasks, and adapt/optimize them to meet robustness, safety, and performance needs. You will invent new algorithms where gaps exist. You’ll collaborate closely with research, controls, hardware, and product-facing teams, and your outputs will be used by downstream teams to further customize and deploy on specific robot embodiments. Key job responsibilities As an Applied Scientist in the Foundations Model team, you will: - Leverage state-of-the-art models for targeted tasks, environments, and robot embodiments through fine-tuning and optimization. - Execute rapid, rigorous experimentation with reproducible results and solid engineering practices, closing the gap between sim and real environments. - Build and run capability evaluations/benchmarks to clearly profile performance, generalization, and failure modes. - Contribute to the data and training workflow: collection/curation, dataset quality/provenance, and repeatable training recipes. - Write clean, maintainable, well commented and documented code, contribute to training infrastructure, create tools for model evaluation and testing, and implement necessary APIs - Stay current with latest developments in foundation models and robotics, assist in literature reviews and research documentation, prepare technical reports and presentations, and contribute to research discussions and brainstorming sessions. - Work closely with senior scientists, engineers, and leaders across multiple teams, participate in knowledge sharing, support integration efforts with robotics hardware teams, and help document best practices and methodologies. About the team We leverage advanced robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to solve complex operational challenges at unprecedented scale. Our fleet of robots operates across hundreds of facilities worldwide, working in sophisticated coordination to fulfill our mission of customer excellence. We are pioneering the development of robotics foundation models that: - Enable unprecedented generalization across diverse tasks - Integrate multi-modal learning capabilities (visual, tactile, linguistic) - Accelerate skill acquisition through demonstration learning - Enhance robotic perception and environmental understanding - Streamline development processes through reusable capabilities
Senior Applied Scientist
US, CA, San Francisco
Amazon is seeking an exceptional Sr. Applied Scientist to lead the development of perception systems that harness the power of radar and thermal imaging — enabling robots to perceive and operate reliably in conditions where conventional vision alone falls short. In this role, you will develop ML-driven perception pipelines for non-traditional sensing modalities, pushing the boundaries of what robots can see, understand, and act upon in challenging real-world environments. At Amazon, we leverage advanced robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to solve some of the most complex operational challenges at a scale unlike anywhere else in the world. Our fleet of robots spans hundreds of facilities globally, working in sophisticated coordination to deliver on our promise of customer excellence. As a Sr. Applied Scientist in Multi-Modal Perception, you will apply deep computer vision expertise alongside classical signal processing techniques for radar and thermal imaging — modalities that provide robustness in adverse conditions and sensing capability beyond the visible spectrum. You will develop ML-based methods to extract semantic and geometric information from radar point clouds, radar tensors, and thermal imagery, and fuse these with camera and depth data to build perception systems that are reliable, comprehensive, and ready for deployment at scale. Your work will unlock new capabilities for our robots — enabling reliable detection, classification, and scene understanding in low-visibility conditions, cluttered environments, and scenarios where traditional RGB-based perception is insufficient. You will lead research that translates cutting-edge advances in deep learning and computer vision to these underexplored but high-impact sensing modalities. Join us in building the next generation of multi-modal perception systems that will define the future of autonomous robotics at scale. Key job responsibilities - Lead the research, design, and development of ML-based perception pipelines for radar and thermal/infrared imaging modalities - Develop deep learning models for object detection, classification, segmentation, and tracking using radar data (point clouds, range-Doppler maps, radar tensors) and thermal imagery - Design and implement multi-modal fusion architectures that combine radar, thermal, camera, and depth data for robust, all-condition perception - Develop novel representations and feature extraction methods tailored to the unique characteristics of radar and thermal sensors (sparsity, noise profiles, spectral properties) - Build end-to-end perception systems — from raw sensor data processing and calibration to model training, evaluation, and real-time deployment - Collaborate closely with Hardware, Navigation, Planning, and Controls teams to define sensor configurations and deliver integrated autonomy solutions - Establish benchmarks, datasets, and evaluation frameworks for radar and thermal perception - Mentor scientists and engineers; foster a culture of scientific rigor, innovation, and high-impact delivery - Publish research findings in top-tier venues (CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICRA, NeurIPS, etc.) and contribute to patents A day in the life - 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 About the team Our team is a diverse group of scientists and engineers passionate about building intelligent machines. We value curiosity, rigor, and a bias for action. We believe in learning from failure and iterating quickly toward solutions that matter.
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