Senior Motion Planning Engineer - Autonomous Vehicles

Gatik; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Gatik, a leader in autonomous middle-mile logistics, seeks a Senior Software Engineer to advance motion planning and decision-making systems for production deployment. You design and implement planners, integrate perception and control, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver safe, efficient autonomous driving capabilities.

The role is based in Santa Clara, CA and requires hands-on development in C++ with real-time systems, plus strong background in robotics and optimization

Qualifications

• Ph.D. with 3+ years or Master’s with 5+ years in robotics, motion planning, or autonomous systems.
• Strong background in lattice-based planning, trajectory optimization or related methods.
• Production-quality C++ experience for real-time or safety-critical systems.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and optimize the motion planning stack for autonomous vehicles, enabling safe, comfortable, and efficient driving in diverse real-world environments.
• Develop lattice-based planners, sampling-based planners, and optimization-based methods for generating dynamically feasible, collision-free trajectories.
• Integrate constraints from perception, prediction, and control to generate context-aware motion plans under uncertainty.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with behavior planning, control, and mapping teams to ensure robust and consistent planning behavior.
• Optimize and maintain C++-based infrastructure for trajectory generation, evaluation, and deployment in real-time onboard systems.
• Analyze closed-loop simulation and on-road performance; identify and resolve failure cases involving traffic interactions, occlusions, or dynamic obstacles.

Skills

Lattice-based planning

Trajectory optimization

Model predictive control

Search-based planning

C++ development

Education

Ph.D. in robotics / motion planning / autonomous systems

Master's degree in robotics, CS or related field

Tools

C++

Job description

Gatik, a leader in autonomous middle-mile logistics, seeks a Senior Software Engineer to advance motion planning and decision-making systems for production deployment. You design and implement planners, integrate perception and control, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver safe, efficient autonomous driving capabilities.

The role is based in Santa Clara, CA and requires hands-on development in C++ with real-time systems, plus strong background in robotics and optimization