Director Robotics Research Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Join our Frontier AI & Robotics team to lead the hardware integration of next-generation robotic systems that will transform how robots perceive and interact with the world. You'll take ownership of critical hardware components, from advanced actuators to precision sensors, ensuring they work seamlessly together to support breakthrough AI research and real-world deployment.
Key job responsibilities
- Prototype Lab Leadership - Lead & develop a cross-functional technician team supporting robotic prototype hardware; own daily priorities, team KPIs, and risk communication to FAR leadership. Serve as the technical escalation point for the lab

- Assembly, Integration & DFx ownership - Assemble & integrate robotic hardware (actuators, sensors, vision, machined components). Build assembly processes and test protocols with hardware engineering. Drive DFM/DFA feedback and own simple mechanical/electrical design tasks, lead integration/debug, and partner with engineers to optimize manufacturability and testability.

- Own R&D prototype test & validation - Validate hardware revisions, verify mechanical assemblies, power sequencing, comms interfaces, and peripherals during bring-up.
- Build a strong debugging & failure analysis function - Troubleshoot & root-cause across the full robot platform (power, compute, comms, actuators, sensors); hands-on for complex issues, directing the team on routine ones. Conduct failure analysis from component to system level using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and multimeters; train technicians on diagnostic techniques.

Reproduce critical failures, interpret schematics, and bridge communication between the lab and engineering teams.
- Own lab technical documentation - Own documentation & quality - author runbooks, FA reports, assembly guides and troubleshooting guides; mentor the team to maintain consistent standards.
- Own mechanical design for the lab - Own mechanical design technician output.

Oversee technicians performing simple R&D design tasks and test fixture design, ensuring quality and alignment with engineering priorities.
- Manage prototyping lab operations - oversee machine shop capabilities and quality, equipment/inventory, vendor coordination, and safety/regulatory compliance.
- Build additional lab capabilities - develop test methodologies, design jigs/fixtures, implement HIL testing, and streamline failure-to-resolution workflows.

A day in the life
Your focus centers on the hardware that powers our advanced robotic platforms. You'll lead a strong robotics technician and lab engineering team to support high degrees of freedom (DoF) robotic hardware prototype assembly and validation. Your team will be responsible for building, debugging and validating prototype hardware, critical component and assembly quality assessments, providing DFM/DFA feedback to engineers and designing test jigs and test set-ups.

You'll manage responsibilities like quality inspections of incoming parts, one-on-ones with technicians, and coordinating machine shop operations. Throughout the day, you balance leading your team through complex assemblies and integration testing while also handling urgent prototyping requests, documentation updates, and planning for upcoming milestones. You're switching between working at the bench alongside your technicians, collaborating in design reviews with engineers, and ensuring lab safety and equipment maintenance.

About the team
At Frontier AI & Robotics, we're not just advancing robotics - we're reimagining it from the ground up. Our team is building the future of intelligent robotics through frontier foundation models and end-to-end learned systems. We tackle some of the most challenging problems in AI and robotics, from developing sophisticated perception systems to creating adaptive manipulation strategies that work in complex, real-world scenarios.
What sets us apart is our unique combination of ambitious research vision and practical impact

We leverage Amazon's computational infrastructure and rich real-world datasets to train and deploy state-of-the-art foundation models. Our work spans the full spectrum of robotics intelligence - from multimodal perception using images, videos, and sensor data, to sophisticated manipulation strategies that can handle diverse real-world scenarios. We're building systems that don't just work in the lab, but scale to meet the demands of Amazon's global operations.
Join us if you're excited about pushing the boundaries of what's possible in robotics, working with world-class researchers, and seeing your innovations deployed at unprecedented scale