Staff Robotics System and Control Engineer

Socket.dev; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 164,000 - 282,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Comprehensive benefits

401K match

Paid PTO

EV charging MTV

Job summary

Coupang's Global Operations Automation and Robotics Technology (GO ART) team in Mountain View, CA, is seeking a Robotics Planning and Control Engineer to develop high‑performance autonomy software for real‑world robotic systems. You will own and contribute across motion planning, control, and interfaces to perception and hardware.

You will work with hardware, perception, and systems teams to deploy robotics in industrial environments, turning prototypes into production deployments while

Qualifications

• Master's or Ph.D. with 2–4 years in robotics or related field.
• Strong foundation in kinematics, dynamics, state estimation, motion planning.
• Experience developing planning and control algorithms for robot systems.
• Proficiency in C++, production-grade software development.
• Experience with ROS/ROS 2 and robotics libraries.
• Experience integrating hardware and software in real-world robotics.
• Industrial robotics experience in manufacturing or logistics a plus.
• Strong analytical and collaboration skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and optimize motion planning and trajectory optimization algorithms.
• Develop planning and control software for collision avoidance and constrained motion.
• Integrate planning modules with perception, state estimation, and hardware.
• Build and maintain production-quality robotics software.
• Create simulation, testing, and validation workflows for safety and robustness.
• Diagnose issues during robot bring-up and field testing.
• Collaborate with hardware, perception, and systems teams to define interfaces.
• Contribute to roadmaps, code reviews, and engineering best practices.
• Stay current with advances in robotics planning, control, and AI foundations.

Skills

Kinematics

Dynamics

State estimation

Motion planning

Trajectory optimization

Optimal control

Feedback control

C++ development

ROS/ROS 2

MoveIt

Education

Master's degree in Robotics or related field

Ph.D. in Robotics or related field

Tools

ROS/ROS 2

MoveIt

cuRobo

Pinocchio

OMPL

Drake

Isaac Sim

Job description

Description

Company Introduction

We exist to wow our customers. We know we’re doing the right thing when we hear our customers say, "How did we ever live without Coupang?" Born out of an obsession to make shopping, eating, and living easier than ever, we’re collectively disrupting the multi-billion-dollar e-commerce industry from the ground up. We are one of the fastest-growing ecommerce companies that established an unparalleled reputation for being a dominant and reliable force in South Korean commerce.

We are proud to have the best of both worlds — a startup culture with the resources of a large global public company. This fuels us to continue our growth and launch new services at the speed we have been since our inception. We are all entrepreneurial surrounded by opportunities to drive new initiatives and innovations. At our core, we are bold and ambitious people that like to get our hands dirty and make a hands‑on impact. At Coupang, you will see yourself, your colleagues, your team, and the company grow every day.

Our mission to build the future of commerce is real. We push the boundaries of what’s possible to solve problems and break traditional tradeoffs. Join Coupang now to create an epic experience in this always‑on, high‑tech, and hyper‑connected world.

Job Overview

Global Operations Automation and Robotics Technology (GO ART) is the Zero-One organization within Coupang chartered to design, build, and deploy the most advanced fulfillment and transportation automation and robotics solutions in the industry. We are transforming Coupang's logistics network through in‑house robotics, computer vision, and AI — at a scale and speed unmatched in Asian e-commerce. The team is based in Mountain View, Seattle, and Seoul.

We are seeking a Robotics Planning and Control Engineer to develop robust, high‑performance autonomy software for real‑world robotic systems. In this role, you will own and contribute across the motion‑planning and control stack, transforming perception, task‑level goals, and system constraints into safe, efficient, and reliable robot behavior.

You will work closely with multidisciplinary teams spanning hardware, perception, systems, and product engineering to deploy robotic capabilities in industrial environments. The ideal candidate combines deep expertise in robotics algorithms with a systems‑level mindset and hands‑on experience taking solutions from prototype through validation and production deployment.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and optimize motion‑planning, trajectory‑optimization, manipulation‑planning, and feedback‑control algorithms for robotic systems.
• Develop planning and control software for collision avoidance, constrained motion, grasping, manipulation, and task execution in dynamic, uncertain environments.
• Integrate planning and control modules with perception, state estimation, kinematics, dynamics, simulation, and robot hardware.
• Build and maintain production‑quality robotics software.
• Develop simulation, testing, and validation workflows that assess safety, robustness, latency, repeatability, and task success across representative operating conditions.
• Diagnose and resolve issues observed during robot bring‑up, field testing, and deployment; use data‑driven methods to improve system performance and reliability.
• Collaborate with hardware, perception, and system teams to define system interfaces, compute and sensor requirements, and deployment architectures.
• Contribute to technical roadmaps, architecture decisions, code reviews, documentation, and engineering best practices.
• Stay current with advances in robotics planning, control, learning, and foundation models, and evaluate their applicability to real‑world products.

Basic Qualifications

• Master's degree or Ph.D. with 2~4 years' experience in industrial in Robotics, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Control, or a closely related field.
• Strong foundation in robotics, including kinematics, dynamics, state estimation, motion planning, trajectory optimization, optimal control, and feedback control.
• Demonstrated experience developing planning and control algorithms for robot manipulators, mobile robots, humanoids, or other complex robotic platforms.
• Proficiency in C++, with experience writing maintainable, tested, and performance‑conscious production software.
• Hands‑on experience with robotics open‑source ecosystems and libraries such as ROS/ROS 2, MoveIt, cuRobo, Pinocchio, OMPL, Drake, Isaac Sim, or equivalent tools.
• Experience integrating and debugging a full robotic system across software, sensors, actuators, middleware, simulation, and hardware.
• Real‑world industrial robotics experience, including deploying, validating, or supporting robots in manufacturing, logistics, warehousing, inspection, service, or comparable operational environments.
• Strong analytical, communication, and cross‑functional collaboration skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proven record of deploying reliable autonomy, manipulation, or motion‑control systems at scale in industrial or commercial settings.
• Expertise in modern GPU‑accelerated planning, differentiable optimization, sampling‑based planning, model predictive control (MPC), whole‑body control, or real‑time trajectory generation.
• Experience with state‑of‑the‑art learning‑enabled robotics approaches, including vision‑language‑action (VLA) models, world models, imitation learning, reinforcement learning, diffusion policies, and sim‑to‑real methods.
• Experience combining learned policies or foundation models with classical planning, optimization, safety constraints, and control methods.
• Familiarity with multimodal perception, scene understanding, grasp synthesis, contact‑rich manipulation, or closed‑loop visual servoing.
• Experience with simulation platforms, digital twins, synthetic‑data pipelines, and automated regression or hardware‑in‑the‑loop testing.
• Contributions to open‑source robotics projects, peer‑reviewed publications, patents, or demonstrated technical leadership in the robotics community.

Pay & Benefits

Our compensation reflects the cost of living across several US geographic markets. At Coupang, your base pay is one part of your total compensation.

The base pay for this position ranges from $164K/year to $282K/year. Pay is based on several factors including market location and may vary depending on job‑related knowledge, skills, and experience.

General Description of All Benefits

• Annual bonus is 0-20% of the base salary
• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life, AD&D insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) & Health Savings Account (HAS)
• Long‑term/Short‑term Disability
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) program
• 401K Plan with Company Match
• 18-21 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) a year based on the tenure
• 12 Paid Holidays
• Paid Parental leave
• Pre‑tax commuter benefits
• MTV- [Free] Electric Car Charging Station

General Description of Other Compensation

“Other Compensation” includes, but is not limited to, bonuses, equity, or other forms of compensation that would be offered to the hired applicant in addition to their established salary or wage scale.

Recruitment Process

• Application Review - Phone Interview - Onsite (or Virtual Onsite) Interview – Offer
• The exact nature of the recruitment process may vary according to the specific job and may be changed due to scheduling or other circumstances.
• Interview schedules and the results will be informed to the applicant via the e‑mail address submitted at the application stage.

Details to Consider

• This job posting may be closed prior to the stated end date for application if all openings are filled.
• Coupang has the right to rescind an offer of employment if a candidate is found to have submitted false information as part of the application process.

Coupang does not discriminate against disabled applicants or those with veteran status. We are proud to offer equal opportunities for all applicants.

Privacy Notice

• Your personal information will be collected and managed by Coupang as stated in the Application Privacy Notice located below: https://www.coupang.jobs/privacy-policy/
• Coupang is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or gender (including pregnancy, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, transgender status), national origin, age, disability, medical condition, HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C status, marital status, military or veteran status, use of a trained dog guide or service animal, political activities, or affiliations, citizenship, or any other characteristic or class protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate. If you need assistance and/or reasonable accommodation in the recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at [e-mail].