Staff Software Engineer (Autonomous Driving Planning)

TL;DR

Staff Software Engineer (Autonomous Driving Planning): Design and build production-grade mission planning, behavior planning, and motion planning software for autonomous ground support equipment with an accent on trajectory optimization, decision-making under uncertainty, and real-time constraint optimization. Focus on driving key technical decisions across the full planning pipeline and bringing planning approaches into production while collaborating with perception, controls, localization, and systems engineering.

Location: Remote

Company

Series A autonomy company transforming ground handling with autonomy for airlines and ground service providers.

What you will do

• Design, implement, and iterate on mission planner, behavior planner, and motion planner for autonomous airport airside operations.
• Own key technical decisions across the planning stack, including algorithm selection, interface definitions, and architecture.
• Prototype and evaluate new planning approaches (optimization-based, search-based, and learning-augmented pipelines) and productionize the best ones.
• Collaborate with perception, controls, localization, and systems engineering to deliver an integrated autonomous driving system.
• Establish and promote best practices in software development, functional safety, and systems engineering for the planning domain.
• Mentor engineers via technical guidance, code review, and design discussions.

Requirements

• BS or MS in Computer Science, Math, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Physics, or a related field.
• Extensive hands-on experience shipping planning modules for autonomous systems in production or real-world operations.
• Strong programming skills in C++ (preferred) or Python, with experience on Linux-based operating systems.
• Ability to take ambiguous technical problems and drive them to well-architected solutions independently.
• Excellent communication skills, proactiveness, and strong sense of ownership.

Nice to have

• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, or a related field.
• Mastery of modern C++ (14+) and safety-critical coding practices (e.g., MISRA, ISO 26262).
• 5+ years of industry experience in planning for robotic ground vehicles.
• In-depth understanding of DDS frameworks like ROS/ROS2 or other networking middleware.
• Startup environment experience and adaptability to rapidly changing priorities.

Culture & Benefits

• Work on a deeply technical planning stack that supports a market-defining enterprise product.
• Collaborate closely with autonomy engineering and cross-functional teams across the full autonomy pipeline.
• Opportunity to shape production-grade planning software and planning best practices, including functional safety.
• Mentorship and technical leadership through design discussions, code reviews, and guidance.