Human-Robot Interaction Senior Applied Scientist, Fauna

What the role actually is

Fauna is looking for a senior applied scientist to advance human-robot interaction for domestic robots. The role appears focused on interaction models that make a robot feel personal, expressive, and socially aware without losing reliability.

This is a research role with product consequences. It asks someone to connect technical methods, interaction design, evaluation, and the everyday reality of robots sharing space with people.

What you would work on

• Lead research into social, conversational, and expressive robot behavior
• Design interaction approaches that use context, memory, and multimodal cues
• Evaluate whether robot behavior is legible, trustworthy, and appropriate
• Collaborate across robotics engineering, product design, and user research

What they are asking for

• Senior applied science background in HRI, AI interaction, robotics, or related fields
• Experience translating ambiguous interaction goals into measurable research programs
• Ability to work across model behavior, human factors, and embodied constraints
• Strong communication with design and engineering partners

Why this one is worth a look

Senior HRI roles for consumer robots are still rare. This one is interesting because the research question is not only whether the robot can perform a task, but whether its behavior can support trust and repeated use at home.