Sr Motion Planning Engineer – Autonomous Vehicles Remote

Helm.ai; United States; Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401K

Remote-friendly

Free lunch

Wellness stipend

Office setup allowance

Company retreats

Job summary

Helm.ai is hiring a senior software engineer to design, implement, and test vehicle software for autonomous driving. You will work on core planning, trajectory generation, and safety-critical behaviors with cross-functional teams in the South Bay office.

We value deep expertise in backend systems, ROS/ROS2, and real-time software, plus collaboration with AI, perception, and control groups to advance highway and urban autonomy.

Qualifications

• MS/PhD in robotics, computer science, electrical engineering, or equivalent.
• Strong C++ for real-time systems; Python for tooling.
• Experience with planning algorithms and decision architectures (FSMs/behavior trees).
• Hands-on ROS/ROS2 experience.

Responsibilities

• Architect core behavior planning and decision frameworks for complex maneuvers.
• Develop real-time trajectory generation balancing safety and progress.
• Translate rules into safe, verifiable planning behaviors for OD/ODD constraints.
• Tackle edge cases like pedestrians, occlusions, and construction zones.
• Integrate planner with perception, prediction, localization, and control modules.
• Test via simulations, closed-course trials, and live on-road testing.
• Optimize for embedded automotive hardware and real-time performance.

Skills

C++

Python

ROS/ROS2

Planning algorithms

Behavior trees

Vehicle dynamics

Embedded systems

Education

MS/PhD in robotics or CS or EE

Tools

CARLA

Job description

Helm.ai is hiring a senior software engineer to design, implement, and test vehicle software for autonomous driving. You will work on core planning, trajectory generation, and safety-critical behaviors with cross-functional teams in the South Bay office.

We value deep expertise in backend systems, ROS/ROS2, and real-time software, plus collaboration with AI, perception, and control groups to advance highway and urban autonomy.