Drone Autonomy Planning & Controls Engineer

DoorDash; California (MO); On-site; USD 199,000 - 292,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) program with company match

Paid parental leave (16 weeks)

Medical, dental, vision benefits

Paid time off and sick leave

Job summary

DoorDash Labs, the autonomous division of DoorDash, seeks a Planning & Controls Engineer to own flight control, motion planning, and mission planning algorithms for drone delivery. You will implement controllers in C++ on embedded platforms and test them in flight, iterating to improve robustness and safety.

You will join a small, focused team, develop low-level controllers for multirotor platforms, and contribute to dynamics modeling, MPC development, and high-level routing with fallback

Qualifications

• MS/PhD in EE/ME/CS/Robotics or related technical field.
• Deep controls fundamentals: linear/nonlinear systems, stability, optimization, etc.
• Excellent C++ and embedded systems knowledge.
• Experience developing and tuning flight controllers and interfacing with state estimation.
• Experience with motion planning algorithms (trajectory optimization, nonlinear optimization, A*/D*/RRT).
• Experience with sensorless BLDC motor control.
• Built or owned a robot control stack end-to-end.

Responsibilities

• Own and develop flight control, motion planning, and mission planning algorithms.
• Design controllers and implement in C++ on embedded platforms.
• Test controllers in flight and iterate.
• Develop, tune, and test fault-tolerant control strategies.

Skills

C++ programming

Embedded systems

Flight control

Motion planning

State estimation

Trajectory optimization

A*/D*/RRT planning

Sensorless BLDC control

Education

MS/PhD in EE/ME/CS/Robotics

Tools

PX4

Job description

DoorDash Labs, the autonomous division of DoorDash, seeks a Planning & Controls Engineer to own flight control, motion planning, and mission planning algorithms for drone delivery. You will implement controllers in C++ on embedded platforms and test them in flight, iterating to improve robustness and safety.

You will join a small, focused team, develop low-level controllers for multirotor platforms, and contribute to dynamics modeling, MPC development, and high-level routing with fallback