Job Information
Amazon Sr. Applied Scientist, Optimization, Planning and Task-Assignment, Amazon Robotics in North Reading, Massachusetts
Description
Are you excited about developing algorithms and models to power Amazon's next generation robotic storage systems? Are you looking for opportunities to build and deploy them on real problems at truly vast scale? At Amazon Fulfillment Technologies and Robotics we are on a mission to build high-performance autonomous systems that perceive and act to further improve our world-class customer experience - at Amazon scale. We are looking for enthusiastic scientists for a variety of roles.
The Research team at Amazon Robotics is seeking a passionate, collaborative, hands-on Sr. Applied Scientist to develop planning and scheduling algorithms to support Amazon's next generation robotic storage systems. The focus of this position workflow optimization and robot task-assignment. It includes designing and evaluating planning and scheduling algorithms using a combination of machine learning and optimization methods as appropriate. This work spans from research such optimal decision making, to policy learning, to experimenting using simulation and modeling tools, to running large-scale A/B tests on robots in our facilities.
The ideal candidate for this position will be familiar with planning or learning algorithms at both the theoretical and implementation levels. You will have the chance to solve complex scientific problems and see your solutions come to life in Amazon’s warehouses!
Key job responsibilities
Research vision - Where should we be focusing our efforts
Research delivery - Proving/dis-proving strategies in offline data or in simulation
Production studies - Insights from production data or ad-hoc experimentation
Production implementation - Building key parts of deployed algorithms or models
A day in the life
On a typical day in this role you will work to progress your research projects, meet with robotic storage engineering, systems, and solutions stakeholders, brainstorm with other scientists on the team, participate in team processes, and mentor junior scientists. You will follow your research projects though the entire life cycle of design, prototype implementation, evaluation, analysis, and will communicate your findings and results through technical papers and reports. You will collaborate with software development teams to implement your ideas in production software services and design experiments to pilot your algorithms and models in Amazon's robotic warehouses.
Amazon offers a full range of benefits that support you and eligible family members, including domestic partners and their children. Benefits can vary by location, the number of regularly scheduled hours you work, length of employment, and job status such as seasonal or temporary employment. The benefits that generally apply to regular, full-time employees include:
Medical, Dental, and Vision Coverage
Maternity and Parental Leave Options
Paid Time Off (PTO)
401(k) Plan
If you are not sure that every qualification on the list above describes you exactly, we'd still love to hear from you! At Amazon, we value people with unique backgrounds, experiences, and skillsets. If you’re passionate about this role and want to make an impact on a global scale, please apply!
About the team
You would join our multi-disciplinary science team that includes scientists with backgrounds in planning and scheduling, grasping and manipulation, machine learning, and operations research. We develop novel planning algorithms and machine learning methods and apply them to real-word robotic warehouses, including:
Planning and coordinating the paths of thousands of robots
Dynamic allocation and scheduling of tasks to thousands of robots
Learning how to adapt system behavior to varying operating conditions
Co-design of robotic logistics processes and the algorithms to optimize them
Our team also serves as a hub to foster innovation and support scientists across Amazon Robotics. We also coordinate research engagements with academia, such as the Robotics section of the Amazon Research Awards.
We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations:
North Reading, MA, USA
Basic Qualifications
PhD, or Master's degree and 6+ years of applied research experience
Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
3+ years of building machine learning models or developing algorithms for business application experience
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with neural deep learning methods and machine learning
Experience with modeling tools such as R, scikit-learn, Spark MLLib, MxNet, Tensorflow, numpy, scipy etc.
Depth and breadth in state-of-the-art approaches for at least one of multi-robot systems, machine learning, or AI planning.
Experience with large-scale machine learning systems, including training efficiency analysis and distilling models for deployment
Experience with cross-domain/multi-task model training including datasets from diverse sources, balancing many axes of measurement in evaluation, and deploying to multiple products.
You have been the lead scientist on a team that has put a non-obvious/non-trivial deep learning system into production
Amazon is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status. For individuals with disabilities who would like to request an accommodation, please visit https://www.amazon.jobs/en/disability/us.