Human-Robot Interaction, Senior Applied Scientist , Fauna

We are seeking a Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Applied Scientist to develop cutting-edge interactions that make robots feel alive, personal, and fun. In this role, you will focus on verbal and non-verbal conversational systems, social dynamics, memory, and long-term relationship formation between robots, their environments, and the people they interact with. Your contributions will be essential in advancing robotics by enabling expressive, socially intelligent, and trustworthy interactions between robots and humans.

Key job responsibilities
- Develop interactive systems that leverage large language models, multimodal inputs and outputs, reinforcement learning from human feedback, or other advanced techniques to achieve fluid, engaging, and socially appropriate robot behavior

- Design and implement intelligent conversational systems that handle turn-taking, grounding, interruption, and incorporates context drawn from a robot's physical environment and shared history with a user

- Integrate perceptual sensor streams including gaze, facial expression, gesture, posture, and more to understand social context and produce coherent, lifelike interactions.

- Develop memory and personalization systems that allow robots to form lasting relationships with individual users, learn their environments, and adapt their behavior over weeks and months

- Stay updated on advancements in HRI, NLP, multimodal AI, and cognitive and social science to apply cutting-edge techniques to robot interaction challenges

- Lead technical projects from conception through production deployment

- Mentor junior scientists and engineers

- Bridge research initiatives with practical engineering implementation

Basic Qualifications

- 3+ years of building machine learning models for business application experience
- PhD, or Master's degree and 6+ years of applied research experience
- Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
- Experience with neural deep learning methods and machine learning
- Strong publication record at major HRI/ML/AI/HCI conferences
- Experience designing, running, and analyzing user studies with real human participants
- Experience programming in Python or related language
- Demonstrated track record of leading technical projects
- Experience mentoring junior scientists/engineers
- Strong understanding of one or more of: dialogue systems, multimodal interaction, social signal processing, affective computing, or cognitive modeling
- Experience applying machine learning (LLMs, multimodal models, reinforcement learning, imitation learning, or related techniques) to interactive or socially situated systems

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience with modeling tools such as R, scikit-learn, Spark MLLib, MxNet, Tensorflow, numpy, scipy etc.
- Experience with large scale distributed systems such as Hadoop, Spark etc.
- History of impactful first-author publications at major conferences
- Experience deploying interaction systems on physical robots or other embodied platforms
- Experience with LLM-based agents, tool use, planning, or grounding language in perception and action
- Experience with long-term memory, personalization, or user modeling for conversational agents
- History of technical leadership and cross-functional collaboration
- Experience bridging research with practical engineering implementation in robotics or consumer AI products
- Extensive programming skills in Python and PyTorch/JAX
- Experience integrating perception systems (e.g., vision, audio, and touch sensors) into interaction pipelines
- Familiarity with safety, privacy, and ethical considerations for socially interactive AI systems

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

Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.

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.

USA, NY, New York - 183,800.00 - 248,700.00 USD annually