AmazonActuator Systems Engineer, Fauna
Amazon is hiring an Actuator Systems Engineer, Fauna in New York, United States. It pays $157k-$213k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.
Level's read on this job
- Level rates this role Little AI ●○○○: aI is not part of the work.
- The posting mentions C, Python and MATLAB among its tools and skills.
- Level classes it as a mid-level role.
- Amazon has 21,000+ other open roles on Level.
- Posted within the past two weeks.
AI in this role
Design, test, and build robotic actuators spanning electrical, mechanical, and firmware disciplines for consumer robotics applications.
You’ll work across electrical, mechanical, and firmware design, and you’ll own actuator performance from the bench all the way to robots running in people’s homes. The things you learn and build will directly shape how safe, reliable, efficient, quiet, and strong our robots are.
Key job responsibilities
- Plan and run characterization testing on our actuators, covering things like torque constant, friction, efficiency, thermal behavior, and wear over time, and turn those results into models and specs the rest of the team can rely on
- Build and maintain electromechanical and thermal models of our actuators that help us predict robot performance, set safe operating limits, and support the controls and simulation teams
- Contribute to the electrical design of the actuator, including motor selection, motor drivers, sensing, and protection, working closely with our EE team and suppliers
- Contribute to the mechanical design of the actuator, including transmissions, bearings, housings, and thermal paths, with an eye toward torque density, efficiency, and manufacturability
- Write and tune motor control firmware, including current and position control, current and thermal limiting, calibration, and fault detection
About the team
Fauna Robotics, an Amazon company, is building capable, safe, and genuinely delightful robots for everyday life. Our goal is simple: make robots people actually want to live and interact with in everyday human spaces.
We believe that future won’t arrive until building for robotics becomes far more accessible. Today, too much effort is spent reinventing the fundamentals. We’re changing that by developing tightly integrated hardware and software systems that make it faster, safer, and more intuitive to create real-world robotic products.
Our work spans the full stack: mechanical design, control systems, dynamic modeling, and intelligent software. The focus is not just functionality, but experience. We’re building robots that feel responsive, expressive, and genuinely useful.
At Fauna, you’ll work at the frontier of this space, helping define how robots move, manipulate, and interact with people in natural environments. It’s an opportunity to solve hard problems across hardware and software with a team focused on making robotics accessible and joyful to build.
If you care about making robotics real for everyone and building systems that are as delightful as they are capable, we’re interested in hearing from you.
Basic qualifications
- Experience in developing functional specifications, design verification plans and functional test procedures
- PhD in EE, ME, Robotics, Physics, or a related field, or a Master’s degree in one of these fields and 4+ years of industry experience developing actuators, motors, or other electromechanical systems
- Experience building models of electromechanical or thermal systems and validating them against test data
- Hands-on experience testing and characterizing motors or actuators
- Experience writing embedded motor control firmware in C or C++, and analyzing data in Python
- Experience leading a technical project from early concept through validation
Preferred qualifications
- Experience designing actuators for robots
- Experience with brushless motor design, field-oriented control, or power electronics
- Experience designing gear trains such as planetary, cycloidal, or harmonic drives
- Experience with thermal modeling and with reliability or life testing
- Experience taking an actuator design from prototype into production with suppliers
- Publications or patents related to actuation, motor control, or electromechanical design
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 - 157,100.00 - 212,600.00 USD annually
How we rate this
Actuator Systems Engineer, Fauna at Amazon rates 20 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Little AI. AI is not part of the work.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Questions you could be asked
- Tell me about a project where actuator design was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where firmware was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where electromechanical modeling was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where motor control was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where robotics was part of your work. What did you do?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Actuator Design, Firmware, Electromechanical Modeling, Motor Control, and Robotics. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
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