Senior Staff Engineer - Motion Planning & Autonomy

Lucid Motors USA, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 217,000 - 318,000; Full time

Job summary

Lucid Motors USA, Inc. is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer in Newark, CA to advance motion planning and controls for autonomous parking and low-speed autonomy. You will develop trajectory optimization, improve local planners, and scale the planning stack for production.

On-site five days a week. Ideal candidates have 10+ years in autonomous driving, expertise in C/C++, and a track record of delivering ADAS features through the full lifecycle.

Qualifications

• M.S. or Ph.D. in Robotics, Control, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
• 10+ years of software development experience in autonomous driving, ADAS, or robotics.
• Strong programming skills in C/C++ with solid understanding of software engineering design principles and best practices.
• Proven track record of delivering ADAS/AD features through the full production lifecycle: requirements analysis, architecture/design, implementation, unit testing, feature tuning, SIL/HIL validation, and in-vehicle deployment.
• Hands-on experience with software integration on embedded platforms (e.g., NVIDIA Xavier/Orin, Infineon Aurix).
• Demonstrated ability to build reliable production-grade systems, including large-scale architectures, evaluation pipelines, and performance-optimized models.
• Leadership experience.

Responsibilities

• Motion Planning & Trajectory Optimization: Develop and enhance trajectory optimization algorithms for low-speed scenarios.
• System Architecture & Performance Optimization: Refactor and scale planning stack for maintainability and extensibility; optimize CPU usage and explore parallel/GPU acceleration.
• Debugging, Validation, and Production Integration: Investigate and resolve real-world issues; validate with simulations and logs; multi-scenario testing.
• Research, Prototyping, and Innovation: Evaluate new planning approaches; prototype ML-driven planning; benchmark for production viability.
• Cross-Team Collaboration & Knowledge Transfer: Drive technical discussions; maintain documentation; track work via Jira.

Skills

C/C++

Software engineering

ADAS

Real-time systems

Leadership

Trajectory planning

Algorithm development

Production-grade systems

Performance optimization

Cross-team collaboration

Education

M.S./Ph.D. in Robotics/Control/Electrical Eng

Tools

NVIDIA Xavier/Orin

Infineon Aurix

Job description

Lucid Motors USA, Inc. is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer in Newark, CA to advance motion planning and controls for autonomous parking and low-speed autonomy. You will develop trajectory optimization, improve local planners, and scale the planning stack for production.

On-site five days a week. Ideal candidates have 10+ years in autonomous driving, expertise in C/C++, and a track record of delivering ADAS features through the full lifecycle.