Applied Scientist III — Robotics & Physical AI, Autonomous Lab, WW Sustainability

Join us at the forefront of Amazons sustainability initiatives to work on environmental and social advancements that support Amazons long-term worldwide sustainability strategy. At Amazon were working to be the most customer-centric company on earth. To get there we need exceptionally talented bright and driven people who are passionate about making a meaningful impact on communities and the environment while helping shape the future of sustainable business practices.

The Worldwide Sustainability (WWS) organization capitalizes on Amazons scale and speed to build a more resilient and sustainable company. We manage our social and environmental impacts globally and drive solutions that enable our customers businesses and the world to become more sustainable. Through innovative programs and strategic partnerships were creating lasting positive change in the communities where we operate while advancing Amazons commitment to environmental stewardship and social responsibility.

We are looking for a robotics scientist to build and operate the first autonomous materials discovery laboratory at Amazon.

This role combines deep robotics expertise
(motion planning control platform integration) with modern Physical AI approaches (vision-language-action models sim-to-real transfer agentic orchestration). You will design autonomous experimental workflows that integrate dexterous robotic platforms analytical instruments and AI-driven hypothesis generation into a closed-loop discovery pipeline where foundation models drive hypothesis generation and experimental planning validated on real hardware under real chemistry.

This is not a pure research role. You will work directly with physical robots laboratory instruments and deployment pipelines. The work is expected to be published but the primary measure of success is a working autonomous platform that generates scientific results. Materials science expertise is not required the team includes domain scientists. What matters is strong AI and robotics foundations scientific curiosity and the drive to ship.


Key job responsibilities
- Develop train and benchmark robotic manipulation policies for materials synthesis and characterization using modern policy architectures (VLA architectures diffusion policies).
- Design and execute sim-to-real transfer strategies including domain randomization physics parameter tuning and visual domain adaptation for laboratory robotic systems.
- Integrate robotic platforms and laboratory instruments into automated workflows via APIs (SiLA 2 or equivalent) building real-time data pipelines for multimodal experimental outputs.
- Architect policy training pipelines combining teleoperation data synthetic demonstrations reinforcement learning and imitation learning for dexterous lab manipulation.
- Build production-grade agentic runtime systems failure detection retry logic exception handling and human-handoff protocols for unattended experimental sessions.
- Design and execute autonomous experimental campaigns applying active learning Bayesian optimization or RL to drive iterative materials discovery.
- Drive technical design reviews and set scientific direction for the autonomous lab platform.


A day in the life
You build the Physical AI systems that power robotics in autonomous science lab one where foundation models generate hypotheses robots execute experiments and closed-loop optimization discovers materials that did not exist yesterday. You train manipulation policies in simulation transfer them to a physical cobot and watch real chemistry validate (or invalidate) an AI-generated theory. The signal here is not a metric on a dashboard; it is a synthesizing and testing novel material with measurable sustainability impact. If you want your research to have physical weight this is the lab.

About the team
Sustainability Science and Innovation (SSI) is a multi-disciplinary research team within WW Sustainability combining science ML economics and engineering. The autonomous laboratory is a new capability being built from the ground up. You will work alongside computational materials scientists chemists and ML engineers with access to AWS-scale compute and Amazons supply chain for hardware. The work targets sustainability outcomes across packaging building materials and alternative fuels.

- Masters degree or PhD
- 3 years of industry or academic research experience
- Knowledge of programming languages such as C/C Python Java or Perl
- Experience with popular deep learning frameworks such as MxNet and Tensor Flow.

- First-hand sim-to-real transfer experience: policies trained in simulation successfully deployed on physical hardware.
- Experience with VLA or robot policy architectures (OpenVLA π0 RT-2 or equivalent).
- 2 years with collaborative robot platforms including motion planning impedance/force control and multi-step manipulation.
- Experience building agentic AI systems for multi-step workflows including failure recovery and foundation model reasoning.
- Experience with self-driving laboratory (SDL) systems or automated chemical synthesis platforms.
- Publications in top-tier venues (NeurIPS ICML ICLR ICRA CoRL RSS).

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 for more information. If the country/region youre applying in isnt 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 WA Seattle - 167100.00 - 226100.00 USD annually