Staff Engineer (Planning / Decision Making)

Oxa Autonomy; Oxford; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading robotics company in Oxford is seeking a leader for the AV Decision Making team. You will spearhead the design and implementation of driving policies for autonomous vehicles, focusing on real-time environment understanding. The ideal candidate has a PhD or MS in a relevant field, strong programming skills, and experience in managing autonomous driving projects. This role offers competitive annual salary and flexible work arrangements.

Benefits

Competitive salary, reviewed annually

Company share programme

Flexible work arrangements

£3,000 flexible benefits including private medical insurance

25 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays

Qualifications

• Practical experience with Behavior Planning, Decision Making, and Trajectory Planning for autonomous driving.
• Prior tech lead and people management experience in a robotics or autonomous driving team.
• Deep understanding of robotics fundamentals.

Responsibilities

• Leading and managing the AV Decision Making team responsible for development, integration, and deployment of AV reasoning software.
• Owning the architecture and strategic direction of your team.
• Promoting cross-functional collaboration with other teams.

Skills

C++

Python

Behavior Planning

Decision Making

Trajectory Planning

Education

PhD or MS in Mech Eng, Aerospace, Computer Science, Robotics, or Mechatronics

Tools

Google Cloud Platform

Job description

Social network you want to login/join with:

col-narrow-left

Client:

Location:

Oxford, United Kingdom

Job Category:

Other

-

EU work permit required:

Yes

col-narrow-right

Job Reference:

6604e4d3df6c

Job Views:

29

Posted:

12.08.2025

Expiry Date:

26.09.2025

col-wide

Job Description:

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.

Team and Responsibilities

You will join our Planning Team, building the core engine that defines how Oxa's Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) behave and move based on real-time environment understanding. Your key responsibilities include:

1. Leading and managing the AV Decision Making team responsible for development, integration, and deployment of AV reasoning software.
2. Owning the architecture and strategic direction of your team, shaping the development of the Oxa Driver.
3. Promoting cross-functional collaboration with routing, trajectory planning, machine learning, and other teams.
4. Driving adoption of engineering and software best practices within your team.
5. Creating metrics and tools to measure and benchmark performance of the planning software stack.
6. Managing the engineering lifecycle from scoping to maintenance.
7. Documenting and training others on your team's work, focusing on feature improvements and business value.
8. Leading hiring, onboarding, mentoring, and team development efforts.
9. Enhancing product quality, customer experience, and team processes.

Requirements

To succeed, you should have:

• A PhD (preferred) or MS in Mech Eng, Aerospace, Computer Science, Robotics, or Mechatronics with relevant industry experience.
• Practical experience with Behavior Planning, Decision Making, and Trajectory Planning for autonomous driving.
• Prior tech lead and people management experience in a robotics or autonomous driving team.
• Deep understanding of robotics fundamentals, including architectures, geometry, vehicle kinematics/dynamics, and uncertainty handling.
• Experience with deploying robotics algorithms on safety-critical hardware.
• Strong C++ and Python skills, with modern software engineering practices.
• Knowledge of AI/ML techniques relevant to decision making and motion planning.

Extra qualifications

• Customer-obsessed mindset.
• Familiarity with Google Cloud Platform.
• Publications or talks in robotics or related fields.

Benefits

We offer:

• Competitive salary, reviewed annually.
• Company share programme.
• Flexible work arrangements.
• £3,000 flexible benefits including private medical insurance, critical illness coverage, life assurance, EAP, group income protection.
• Salary exchange pension plan.
• 25 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays.
• Pet-friendly office environment.
• Accessible spaces for diverse needs.