Staff Motion Planning Engineer

Fruition Group US; San Francisco (CA); Vor Ort; USD 200.000 - 270.000; Vollzeit

Zusammenfassung

Fruition Group US is partnering with a fast-growing autonomous vehicle company to hire a senior Motion Planning Engineer. This role leads the planning stack architecture and guides algorithms that generate safe, efficient trajectories in real-world driving scenarios.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with perception, prediction, controls, and simulation teams, and shape the technical direction for scalable planning on real vehicles.

Qualifikationen

• 8+ years of experience in motion planning, trajectory optimization, or closely related robotics discipline with track record of technical leadership.
• Production experience shipping planning software onto real autonomous or robotic systems at scale.
• Strong proficiency in C++ and/or Python in real-time or performance-sensitive contexts.
• Extensive experience with ROS/ROS2 or comparable robotics middleware.
• Track record of driving architectural decisions and influencing technical direction beyond your own code.
• Excellent communication skills and mentoring experience.

Aufgaben

• Set technical direction and architecture for the motion planning stack, balancing shipping needs with long-term scalability.
• Design and guide planning algorithms for safe, efficient trajectories in dynamic environments.
• Lead behavior planning and decision-making for navigating traffic and intersections.
• Collaborate with perception and prediction teams to ground planning in real-time environment understanding.
• Advance simulation tools and test frameworks to validate planning before vehicle deployment.
• Analyze real-world logs to diagnose and resolve planning failures.
• Mentor engineers on the planning team and raise overall technical bar.
• Represent the planning team in cross-functional architecture discussions with controls, systems, and vehicle platforms.

Kenntnisse

Motion planning

Trajectory optimization

Robotics

C++

Python

ROS/ROS2

Technical leadership

Mentoring

Ausbildung

BS/MS/PhD in Robotics/CS/ME

Tools

ROS/ROS2

Jobbeschreibung

$200,000 - $270,000 base + equity

About the Role:

Fruition Group is partnering with a fast-growing autonomous vehicle company to find their next Motion Planning Engineer. Our client is building the software stack that lets autonomous vehicles navigate real-world environments safely and confidently, and they need a senior technical leader to help set the direction for the planning layer that turns perception and prediction into safe, comfortable, real-time driving decisions.

This is a senior individual contributor role for someone who has shipped motion planning software onto real vehicles and has strong opinions, backed by experience, about how a planning stack should be architected to scale. You'll help set technical direction across the planning team, work across perception, controls, and simulation, and be a go-to voice on the hardest planning problems in the stack.

What You'll Do:

• Help set technical direction and architecture for the motion planning stack, balancing near‑term shipping needs against long‑term scalability.
• Design and guide the implementation of planning algorithms that generate safe, efficient, and comfortable trajectories in complex, dynamic environments.
• Lead the design of behavior planning and decision‑making logic for navigating traffic, intersections, and interactions with other road users.
• Partner closely with perception and prediction teams to ensure planning decisions are grounded in accurate, real‑time understanding of the environment.
• Drive the evolution of simulation tools and test frameworks used to validate planning behavior before it reaches a vehicle.
• Dig into on‑vehicle data and real‑world driving logs to identify and resolve the hardest planning failures.
• Mentor other engineers on the planning team and raise the technical bar across the group.
• Represent the planning team in cross‑functional architecture discussions with controls, systems, and vehicle platform teams.

Requirements:

• BS, MS, or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience in motion planning, trajectory optimization, or a closely related robotics discipline, with a track record of technical leadership.
• Production experience shipping planning software onto real autonomous or robotic systems at scale, not just research or simulation.
• Deep expertise in algorithms relevant to planning - search‑based, sampling‑based, and/or optimization‑based methods - and the judgment to know which fits a given problem.
• Strong proficiency in C++ and/or Python in a real‑time or performance‑sensitive context.
• Extensive experience with ROS/ROS2 or comparable robotics middleware.
• A track record of driving architectural decisions and influencing technical direction beyond your own code.
• Comfortable working with large‑scale simulation and log‑based testing infrastructure.
• Excellent communication skills and experience mentoring other engineers.

Ready to help set the technical direction for the planning stack behind vehicles that actually drive themselves?