Applied Scientist III — Robotics & Physical AI, Autonomous Lab, WW Sustainability at Amazon
Seattle, WA
$167,100–$226,100from the description
Jul 2, 2026
Seattle, WA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A robotics scientist role focused on building and running an autonomous materials discovery laboratory from the ground up. Day-to-day work involves training robotic manipulation policies, executing sim-to-real transfer, integrating lab instruments into automated workflows, and designing closed-loop experimental campaigns driven by AI models. The role suits someone with strong robotics and AI foundations who is comfortable working hands-on with physical hardware and deployment pipelines rather than in a purely research capacity.
Senior level · 3+ years · Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA · Master's required · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 150 people in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 110–230
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $170,959 (middle half $135,720–$216,519). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
The role sits at the intersection of robotics engineering and AI/ML research — it could reasonably map to Software Developers (15-1252) given the emphasis on building and shipping production-grade robotic systems, or to Data Scientists (15-2051) given the ML modeling, policy training, and scientific research framing. 15-1252 was chosen as primary because the JD explicitly stresses shipping a working autonomous platform over publishing research.
Degree requirement: the JD states 'Master's degree, or PhD' as a Basic Qualification with no 'or equivalent experience' escape clause, so Master's is treated as the minimum hard requirement.
The '3+ years of industry or academic research experience' is the stated role-level experience gate; it is set as the overall years minimum.
Programming language requirement lists C/C++, Python, Java, or Perl as alternatives — any one satisfies the gate. Similarly, MXNet and TensorFlow are listed as alternative deep learning frameworks.
Sim-to-real transfer, VLA/robot policy architectures, collaborative robot platforms, agentic AI systems, SDL/automated synthesis experience, and publication record all appear under the 'Preferred Qualifications' section and are marked accordingly.
SiLA 2 appears in the job responsibilities narrative (not a requirements section) as an example API standard; it is marked preferred rather than a hard gate.
AWS and Bayesian optimization appear only in narrative/context sections describing the team's tools and experimental methods, not in the requirements block; both are marked preferred.
Compensation includes sign-on payments and RSUs in addition to the stated base salary range.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): sim-to-real transfer, Bayesian optimization.
Read the full posting
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