Staff Robotics Planning & Control Engineer

General Motors; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

General Motors in Sunnyvale, California, seeks a Senior or Staff Robotics Planning and Control Engineer to lead motion and behavior planning, path generation, and real-time control for autonomous robotic systems.

You will collaborate with localization, perception, and hardware teams to ensure seamless integration across the robotics software stack and contribute to offline/simulation-based validation, SIL/HIL testing, and architectural decisions for a robust autonomy stack.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree in robotics, computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or a related field.
• At least five years of experience in motion planning, controls, or autonomy for real-world robotics systems or autonomous vehicles.
• Experience with numerical optimization techniques, such as nonlinear constrained optimization and model predictive control, or advanced robotics algorithms.
• Strong programming skills in C++ and Python.
• Proven ability to develop computationally efficient software that meets real-time performance requirements.
• Solid understanding of robotics systems, including localization, mapping, planning, and control.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, implementation, and deployment of motion planning, behavioral planning, and control algorithms for autonomous robotic systems.
• Develop path-planning and trajectory-generation algorithms subject to kinematic and dynamic constraints, enabling safe and efficient operation in dynamic environments.
• Optimize planning and control software for real-time performance and hardware limitations.
• Collaborate with localization, perception, and hardware teams to ensure seamless integration across the robotics software stack.
• Use offline and simulation-based tools to evaluate, benchmark, and validate planning and control algorithms.
• Contribute to testing and validation workflows, including software-in-the-loop (SIL), hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), and field testing.
• Provide technical leadership, mentor team members, and help define software architecture and engineering best practices for planning and control.

Skills

C++

Python

Motion planning

Control systems

Numerical optimization

Real-time software

Robotics

Education

Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Doctoral in robotics/CS/EE/ME

Tools

ROS/ROS 2

Navigation2

Simulation frameworks

HIL/SIL

Job description

General Motors in Sunnyvale, California, seeks a Senior or Staff Robotics Planning and Control Engineer to lead motion and behavior planning, path generation, and real-time control for autonomous robotic systems.

You will collaborate with localization, perception, and hardware teams to ensure seamless integration across the robotics software stack and contribute to offline/simulation-based validation, SIL/HIL testing, and architectural decisions for a robust autonomy stack.