Robotics Motion Planning Engineer , Robotics Mountain View

Sunday Inc.; Redwood City (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

A robotics innovation company in Redwood City seeks a Robotics Motion Planning Engineer to develop advanced motion planning systems for home robots. This role involves building collision avoidance algorithms and leveraging AI models for safe navigation in complex environments. Candidates should have a strong background in trajectory optimization and experience with Python or C++. The company values diversity and encourages applicants to apply even if they don't meet all criteria.

Qualifications

• Deep understanding of trajectory optimization methods and trajectory smoothing.
• Experience implementing motion planning on real robot hardware.
• Solid understanding of spatial transforms and robot kinematics.

Responsibilities

• Build a whole-body motion planning system with ML and controls teams.
• Develop collision avoidance algorithms for noisy 3D perception.
• Create path planning algorithms for safe navigation in home environments.

Skills

Trajectory optimization methods

Motion planning techniques

Collision avoidance algorithms

Production-quality software in Python or C++

Education

MS or PhD in robotics or related fields

Job description

Join Us in Building the Future of Home Robotics

At Sunday, we're developing personal robots to reclaim the hours lost to repetitive tasks. We're focused on an ambitious goal to make generalized robots broadly accessible, enabling households to take back quality time.

We have spent the last 18 months building a talented team, securing capital, and validating our technology. We are now seeking passionate individuals to join us in the next phase of our growth. If you are ready to apply your skills to the forefront of robotics innovation, we’d love to hear from you.

What to Expect

In building robots for the home, we are tackling a true grand challenge in robotics: dexterous and safe mobile manipulation in unstructured environments. To make this possible, we are building across the entire robotics stack. We’re training state-of-the-art AI models that leverage our large-scale, high-quality, real-world data collection system. At the same time, we’re building a new kind of consumer hardware product, which will be deployed into homes and delivering real value for real customers. As an early member of a small, cross-functional team, you’ll play a key role in pushing both our technology and product forward: advancing the frontier of embodied AI, and soon giving countless hours back to our customers so they can spend more time on the things they value most.

As a Robotics Motion Planning Engineer, you’ll play a critical role in enabling our robots to move smoothly, safely, and confidently in diverse and complex home environments. You will work at the intersection of our SLAM system, whole-body control algorithms, and latest AI models. In this role, you will work closely with our ML team to translate novel manipulation capabilities into reliable and trustworthy whole-body motions. Your software will help our home robots maintain safety, avoid unintended contact with their surroundings, and enrich user interactions through natural and expressive body language.

What You’ll Do

• Build a general-purpose whole-body motion planning system with ML and controls teams
• Build robust collision avoidance algorithms with noisy real-world 3D perception systems
• Develop path planning algorithms that leverage learned foundation models to facilitate safe navigation in complex home environments

What You’ll Bring

• Deep understanding of trajectory optimization methods, trajectory smoothing, and sampling-based motion planning techniques
• Experience implementing and testing motion planning and trajectory optimization methods on real robot hardware
• Experience with common 3D geometry representations used for path planning and collision avoidance, and understanding of their tradeoffs
• Solid understanding of spatial transforms, robot kinematics, and camera projections
• Experience writing production-quality software in Python or C++
• MS or PhD in robotics or related fields

Nice to Have

• Experience in learning-based motion planning and control
• Experience in 3D learning and perception: point cloud, depth images, learned stereo
• Experience in designing robot motions for expressive human-robot interaction

At Sunday Robotics, we’re building technology shaped by real people — curious, creative, and diverse. We’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer and consider all qualified applicants regardless of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.

Even if you don’t meet every single requirement, we encourage you to apply. Studies show that women and underrepresented groups often hold back unless they meet 100% of the criteria — we don’t want that to be the reason we miss out on great talent.