Senior Motion Planning Engineer – SDS (Remote)

General Motors LLC; Sunnyvale (CA); Remote; USD 171,000 - 261,000; Full time

Job summary

General Motors is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for the Secondary Driving System within Embodied AI. You will design production‑quality C++ software spanning ML perception, planning, and controls to enable safe, fail‑operational behavior in the SDS stack.

You will collaborate with perception, state estimation, vehicle dynamics, and safety experts to ship robust software for Super Cruise and future products, with a remote‑friendly setup based in the California Bay Area region.

Qualifications

• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical/Mechanical Engineering, or a related field; or equivalent practical experience.
• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience building production systems in robotics, autonomous vehicles, or complex real‑time/control systems.
• Strong proficiency in modern C++ (e.g., C++14/17 or later), with experience in large, multi‑contributor codebases; familiarity with Python for tooling, prototyping, and data analysis.
• Experience in motion planning and controls, including: Trajectory generation and tracking; Optimal control / model‑predictive control / trajectory optimization; Classical and modern feedback control design (e.g., PID, LQR, robust control); Handling kinematic and dynamic constraints for ground vehicles.
• Experience integrating with perception and prediction pipelines (object detection, tracking, prediction, lane or road geometry), even if your core focus is planning and controls.
• Demonstrated track record of delivering reliable, high‑quality autonomous or robotics software, including testing strategies, metrics, and performance tuning under latency/compute constraints.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work across disciplines (ML, systems, platform, safety) and drive clarity in ambiguous technical spaces.
• Passion for automated driving and robotics, and for building systems that measurably improve safety and driver experience.

Responsibilities

• Develop and optimize production‑grade C++ software across the SDS stack, integrating ML‑based perception with analytical planners and classical controllers under tight latency and compute constraints.
• Design and implement planning and controls algorithms for the Secondary Driving System, including lane‑keeping, obstacle avoidance, lane changes to shoulder, and controlled stopping behaviors tailored to MRM scenarios.
• Work with partners in state estimation, mapping, localization, and autonomy management to define and implement interfaces and contracts that enable reliable SDS engagement in response to primary stack failures.
• Own features end‑to‑end: requirements clarification, design reviews, implementation, simulation/HIL bring‑up, on‑road testing, and iteration based on metrics and driver feedback.
• Apply and champion software engineering best practices: clean interfaces, code reviews, automated testing, CI, performance profiling, and observability for on‑road incidents.
• Analyze and debug complex integration issues, using logs, telemetry, and principled experiments to root‑cause problems at the intersection of perception, planning, controls, and vehicle behavior.
• Partner with Safety and Systems Engineering to ensure SDS behaviors and software designs align with functional safety, redundancy, and MRM requirements for fail‑operational Eyes‑Off features.
• Mentor and unblock other engineers through design discussions, code reviews, and example implementations, helping raise robustness, clarity, and execution speed.

Skills

C++

Python

Robotics

Motion planning

Controls

ROS

Education

BS/MS/PhD in CS/Robotics/Engineering

Tools

ROS

Job description

General Motors is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for the Secondary Driving System within Embodied AI. You will design production‑quality C++ software spanning ML perception, planning, and controls to enable safe, fail‑operational behavior in the SDS stack.

You will collaborate with perception, state estimation, vehicle dynamics, and safety experts to ship robust software for Super Cruise and future products, with a remote‑friendly setup based in the California Bay Area region.