Principal Applied Scientist, Fauna

Amazon is hiring a Principal Applied Scientist, Fauna in New York, United States. It pays $219k-$296k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Amazon.

Level's read on this job

On Level's scale, this applied scientist role is Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
Pay on this posting starts 28% higher than the typical applied scientist posting on Level.
The posting mentions computer vision among its tools and skills.
Amazon has 20,000+ other open roles on Level.
Posted in the last few days.

AI in this role

computer-vision

Fauna Robotics is building capable, safe, and delightful robots for everyday life, and understanding where it is, and what's around it, is fundamental to everything a robot does. A robot that lives alongside people must build and maintain a map of its environment, plan paths through cluttered and changing spaces, and do so reliably whether it's navigating a hallway for the hundredth time or entering a room it has never seen. We are hiring a Principal Applied Scientist to serve as a technical authority on how our robots understand and move through the world.

You will design, prototype, and ship the core algorithms that give the robot spatial intelligence - from real-time SLAM and scene understanding to motion planning and autonomous navigation. You will set the mapping and navigation architecture that other engineers build on, shape sensor and compute decisions across robot generations, mentor the engineers and scientists working on spatial perception, and be the person teams come to when the robot is lost.

Key job responsibilities
- Set the long-range science roadmap and technical architecture for the robot's mapping, localization, and navigation stack, and serve as Fauna's primary technical authority on spatial intelligence
- Design and implement real-time visual-inertial and/or lidar-based SLAM systems that build, update, and maintain persistent maps of home and indoor environments
- Develop robust localization algorithms that allow the robot to determine its precise pose in previously mapped spaces, handling environmental changes such as moved furniture, lighting variation, and dynamic occupants
- Build navigation and motion planning systems that produce safe, efficient, and natural-looking trajectories through cluttered, dynamic human spaces
- Architect semantic mapping capabilities that go beyond geometry — enabling the robot to understand rooms, objects, surfaces, and traversable space at a level that supports higher-level task planning
- Drive sensor selection and placement decisions for depth cameras, lidar, IMUs, and encoders in collaboration with mechanical, electrical, and industrial design teams, backed by your own benchmarking and analysis
- Design the robot-specific data collection, benchmarking, and evaluation methods to validate mapping accuracy, localization robustness, and navigation safety across diverse real-world environments
- Develop strategies for graceful degradation and recovery — ensuring the robot behaves safely when localization is uncertain, maps are incomplete, or sensors are occluded
- Present mapping and navigation science and its tradeoffs to senior leadership and partner teams
- Mentor scientists and engineers, raising the scientific bar for spatial perception across the organization through design reviews, code reviews, and hiring

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, navigate, 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 influencing multiple stakeholders and leading cross functional teams across geographies and business units
- PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Vision, or a related field and 7+ years of relevant research experience after degree, or a Master's degree and 12+ years of equivalent experience
- Deep, hands-on expertise in simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), including visual, lidar, or visual-inertial approaches
- Track record of designing and shipping mapping or navigation systems on a physical robot or autonomous platform operating in real-world environments
- Experience with motion planning and path planning algorithms for mobile robots in dynamic, unstructured spaces
- Strong publication record or demonstrated technical impact in SLAM, spatial perception, or autonomous navigation

Preferred qualifications

- Experience building persistent, updatable maps for long-lived robots operating in changing environments
- Experience with semantic mapping or scene understanding that integrates geometric and semantic representations
- Experience with sensor fusion combining depth cameras, lidar, IMUs, wheel odometry, or other proprioceptive sensors for robust state estimation
- Experience optimizing SLAM or navigation algorithms for real-time execution on embedded or edge compute platforms
- Experience with learned approaches to navigation, mapping, or place recognition (e.g., neural SLAM, learned visual odometry, foundation models for spatial reasoning)
- Experience with multi-floor or large-scale indoor mapping and localization
- Experience mentoring scientists and engineers
- Publications and/or patents in SLAM, autonomous navigation, or spatial perception

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 - 218,800.00 - 295,900.00 USD annually

How we rate this

Principal Applied Scientist, Fauna at Amazon rates 87 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● 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.

Key facts

Principal Applied Scientist, Fauna is an open job at Amazon.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $219k-$296k a year.
The role is based in US, NY, New York.
The job was posted on November 4, 2026.
Seniority: lead.
Applications are handled by Amazon. Apply on Amazon

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

Computer vision

Also common in applied scientist jobs at this level

Python Machine learning C++Java Deep learning LLM

Pay

This job starts at: $219k
Typical applied scientist job: $172k

This posting starts 28% above the typical applied scientist job. See applied scientist jobs

Questions you could be asked

Walk me through a computer vision problem you solved, from raw data to a deployed model.
How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?
Tell me about a time a model underperformed in production. How did you find out, and what did you change?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Computer vision. 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.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

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