Principal Software Engineer, Motion Planning

In our Motion Planning team, you'll apply your passion for robotics and software development for production-ready autonomous vehicles. In this role, you'll perform groundbreaking research, conduct design processes, and implement performance-critical algorithms to generate safe, comfortable, and intuitive autonomous vehicle behaviors across Motional’s fleet of robotaxis.

Technical Scope:

• Develop state-of-the-art motion planning algorithms to ensure the vehicle autonomously navigates safely and smoothly.
• Design and build robust and scalable software that enables rapid exploration and evaluation of different motion planning approaches and algorithms.
• Collaborate with upstream decision/behavior planning, prediction, and downstream motion tracking algorithms.
• Leverage modern development toolchains to enable rapid development cycles, including testing, simulation, and continuous integration.

Role responsibilities:

• As a staff engineer, you will be expected to define and execute multi-quarter technical roadmaps and OKRs that span across multiple sub-systems and influence partner teams' technical directions
• Lead technical discussions and establish team-level processes for system-level design, review, and the implementation of advanced features and formulation improvements
• Own system-level architecture for core products, driving org-wide incident response and severity reviews to proactively optimize on-road performance and overall system reliability.
• Mentor junior and senior team members to cultivate a department-wide culture of product-focused engineering, robust documentation, and continuous technical learning.

What we're looking for:

• 5-7+ years of professional software development experience, preferably in C++.
• Bachelor's required, Masters or PhD degree preferred in Robotics, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• Experience with algorithm development in motion planning, navigation, or any robotics or safety-critical systems.
• Experience owning and leading technical development on features from problem formulation through algorithm design and implementation to delivery with impact.