Human-Robot Interaction Applied Scientist, Fauna

What the role actually is

Fauna is hiring an applied scientist focused on human-robot interaction for a home robot. The job centers on verbal and non-verbal interaction, conversational behavior, social dynamics, memory, and long-term relationship formation.

The work sits between robotics, large language models, multimodal interaction, and user-facing behavior. It is about making robot responses feel fluid, socially appropriate, and trustworthy in real environments.

What you would work on

• Develop HRI systems for conversation, turn-taking, grounding, and interruption handling
• Use multimodal signals and physical context to shape robot behavior
• Explore RLHF or related feedback methods for social robot interaction
• Work with design and robotics teams to turn research into embodied behavior

What they are asking for

• Applied science experience in HRI, embodied AI, social robotics, or conversational systems
• Ability to reason about both technical model behavior and human perception
• Comfort evaluating interactions that unfold over time in physical settings
• Experience collaborating with design, research, and robotics engineering partners

Why this one is worth a look

Most robotics jobs optimize task completion. This one is explicitly about the social layer: how a robot behaves around people, remembers context, and avoids feeling brittle or awkward. That makes it highly aligned with The Robot Age's HRI lens.