Senior Motion Planning Engineer - Trajectory Generation (Remote)

Pittsburgh Robotics Network; Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); Hybrid; USD 205,000 - 272,500; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid schedule

Remote work option

Job summary

Motional in Boston, Pittsburgh, and remote locations is seeking a Staff Motion Planning Engineer to guide trajectory generation for production‑level autonomous vehicles. You will own the long‑term technical strategy, architecture, and implementation of motion planning algorithms to deliver safe, smooth vehicle motion.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with control, prediction, and decision teams, and drive scalable C++ software in real‑time environments.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of production‑grade C++ software development in real‑time or safety‑critical applications.
• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD preferred in Robotics, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
• Proven ownership of large‑scale technical development initiatives from problem formulation to on‑vehicle production implementation.
• Deep experience with Model Predictive Control (MPC), motion planning architectures, and planning under uncertainty.
• Strong mathematical understanding of non‑linear and numerical optimization (interior point methods, SQP, convex/non‑convex).
• Extensive experience deploying and scaling numerical optimization solvers (IPOPT, Gurobi, OSQP, CasADi) in real‑time embedded environments.
• Strong knowledge of Python for simulation, data analysis, or rapid prototyping is a bonus.

Responsibilities

• Strategic Technical Leadership: Define, justify, and navigate complex system trade‑offs and technical concepts to drive platform‑level decisions.
• Cross‑Functional Orchestration: Lead architectural co‑design with teams on decision/behavior planning, prediction, and vehicle control.
• Subsystem Roadmapping: Author high‑impact proposals that anchor long‑term technical roadmaps across subsystems.
• Engineering Mentorship: Foster technical growth of senior and junior team members and promote an engineering‑driven culture.

Skills

C++

Real-time systems

Safety-critical

Motion planning

MPC

Optimization

Python

Education

Bachelor's/Master's/PhD in Robotics/CS/EE

Tools

IPOPT

Gurobi

OSQP

CasADi

Job description

Motional in Boston, Pittsburgh, and remote locations is seeking a Staff Motion Planning Engineer to guide trajectory generation for production‑level autonomous vehicles. You will own the long‑term technical strategy, architecture, and implementation of motion planning algorithms to deliver safe, smooth vehicle motion.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with control, prediction, and decision teams, and drive scalable C++ software in real‑time environments.