Staff Engineer (Planning / Decision Making)

Oxa

Toronto

Hybrid

CAD 180,000 - 260,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Hybrid working arrangements

Comprehensive health benefits

Employee Assistance Program

Long Term Disability Insurance

Critical Illness Insurance

Extended Health Care

Dental

Health Spending Account

Personal Spending Account

Employee Assistance Program

Job summary

A company in autonomous vehicle technology seeks a leader for the AV Decision Making team in Toronto. This role involves designing and deploying driving policies to ensure safe and predictable AV behavior, collaboration across teams, and guiding software development. Candidates should have a PhD or MS in relevant fields and significant industry experience, particularly in robotics and software development. The position offers a competitive salary and hybrid working arrangements.

Qualifications

Significant industry experience desirable.
Prior tech lead and people management experience.
Strong software development skills in C++.

Responsibilities

Lead and manage the AV Decision Making team.
Own the architecture and strategic direction of the team.
Promote collaboration with various teams for AV driving behavior.
Promote best engineering practices and CI/CD adoption.
Create metrics and tools to benchmark planning software performance.
Own the full engineering lifecycle from scoping to maintenance.
Document and train others, and align solutions with business value.
Spearhead hiring and onboarding, interview, and mentorship.
Improve product quality, customer experience, and maintainability.

Skills

C++

Python

Robotics Fundamentals

Behavior Planning

Decision Making

Trajectory Planning

AI/ML techniques

Education

PhD in related field

MS in related field

Tools

Google Cloud Platform

Job description

Overview

Oxais enabling the transition to self-driving vehicles through an initial focus on the most commercially advanced sector; the autonomous shuttling of goods and people. We are home to some of the world's leading experts on autonomous vehicles, creating solutions such as Oxa Driver, Oxa MetaDriver, and Oxa Hub. Our technology is deployed across the UK and the U.S., and we're partnering with a fast-growing ecosystem of operators, vehicle OEMs and equipment makers serving autonomous transportation globally as it advances.

The Role

We are looking for a leader to head our AV Decision Making team. In this role, you will spearhead the design, implementation, testing, and deployment of the driving policy, ensuring our AVs drive like humans - predictably and safely. Your primary focus will be on behavior and manoeuvre planning for Oxa's different on-road and off-road applications, utilising state-of-the-art robotics and AI algorithms. You will collaborate extensively across the company, working closely with other Planning teams (like Machine Learning and Trajectory Planning), upstream teams (such as Perception), and various other groups in a highly cross-functional environment.

Your Team

You will join our Planning Team, where we are building the core Engine that defines how Oxa's Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) behave and move, all based on their real-time understanding of the environment.

Responsibilities

Lead and manage the AV Decision Making team, which is responsible for the development, integration, and deployment of AV reasoning software that drives our AVs through complex on-road and off-road environment.
Take ownership of the architecture and strategic direction of your team, and overall shape the development of the Oxa Drive.
Promote a cross-functional development style and closely collaborate with routing, trajectory planning, machine learning, and other teams to achieve human-like, predictable, and safe AV driving behavior.
Drive the adoption of engineering and software development best practices in your team.
Create appropriate metrics and tools to measure and benchmark the performance of the planning software stack deployed in various environments.
Take ownership of the engineering lifecycle, including scoping, design, implementation, testing, deployment, and maintenance of your team's work.
Document and train others on your team's work, focus on improving features, and understand the business and customer value of your team's work.
Spearhead hiring and onboarding by defining role responsibilities and requirements, leading interviews, engaging in recruiting outreach for your team, and mentoring and developing new team member.
Positively impact product quality, customer experience, and maintainability, and identify projects that improve team processes and solution.

Qualifications

PhD in related field (Mech Eng, Aerospace, Comp Science, Robotics, Mechatronics) with significant years of industry experience is desirable.
MS in related field (Mech Eng, Aerospace, Comp Science, Robotics, Mechatronics) with extensive years of industry experience is acceptable.
Practical experience with Behaviour Planning, Decision Making and Trajectory Planning for autonomous driving.
Prior tech lead and people management experience in a robotics software development team (preferably focused on autonomous driving), guiding and mentoring team members.
A deep understanding of Robotics Fundamentals, including robotics architecture, 2D/3D geometry & transformations, vehicle kinematics and dynamics, probability handling and uncertainty representation.
Strong C++ and basic Python software development skills, including modern C++ in production environments.
Deep understanding of modern software engineering practices, including automated testing and CI.
Understanding of AI/ML techniques for decision making and/or motion planning in AVs.
Bonus: Customer-obsessed mindset; familiarity with Google Cloud Platform; relevant publications or talks in robotics or related conferences.

Benefits

Competitive salary, benchmarked against the market and reviewed regularly.
Hybrid working arrangements.
Life Insurance, AD&D Insurance, Long Term Disability Insurance, Critical Illness Insurance.
Extended Health Care, Dental, Health Spending Account, Personal Spending Account.
Employee Assistance Program.

Culture

We believe that diversity of thought and experience is a key driver of innovation. It also makes life and work more interesting. Oxa's culture celebrates humanity in all its diversity and richness, and uses difference as fuel to grow and succeed together. Everyone is welcome, everyone has a voice, everyone is valued.

Seniority level