Staff Software Engineer, Motion Planning

Roboticsconnected; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

AeroVect is hiring a Staff Software Engineer to design and build planning systems for autonomous ground support equipment in airport environments. You will own mission, behavior, and motion planning, shaping the architecture of production-grade software used in airside operations.

You'll collaborate with perception, controls, and systems teams to deliver an integrated autonomous driving system, applying advanced optimization and learning-augmented approaches while promoting software safety and

Qualifications

• Degree in a technical field is required or equivalent experience.
• Hands-on experience designing planning modules for autonomous systems.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement mission, behavior, and motion planners for airport ground support robotics.
• Drive architectural decisions across the planning stack and interfaces.
• Prototype and evaluate planning approaches and bring best ideas to production.
• Collaborate with perception, controls, localization, and systems teams to deliver integrated autonomy.
• Mentor engineers and contribute to software development and safety practices.

Skills

C++

Python

Linux

Planning modules

Communication

Education

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science/Engineering/Robotics

Tools

ROS/ROS2

DDS middleware

Job description

WHO WE ARE

AeroVect is transforming ground handling with autonomy, redefining how airlines and ground service providers around the globe run day-to-day operations. We are a Series A company backed by top-tier venture capital investors in aviation and autonomous driving. Our customers include some of the world’s largest airlines and ground handling providers. For more information, visit www.aerovect.com http://www.aerovect.com.

JOB DESCRIPTION

We are looking for an experienced Staff Software Engineer who can design and build best-in-class planning systems for autonomous driving in structured, low-speed environments.

In this role, you'll be the technical backbone of the planning stack — owning the design and implementation of production-grade mission planning, behavior planning, and motion planning software. You'll work across the full planning pipeline to achieve category-defining vehicle autonomy for the airside, tackling hard problems in trajectory optimization, decision-making under uncertainty, and real-time constraint optimization.

This opportunity offers a deeply technical engineer the chance to shape a market-defining enterprise product that combines autonomous vehicle technology with a robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) business model. This role reports to our Planning Tech Lead and works closely with the autonomy engineering team.

You Will:

• Design, implement, and iterate on the mission planner, behavior planner, and motion planner for autonomous ground support equipment operating in airport airside environments.
• Drive key technical decisions across the planning stack — selecting algorithms, defining interfaces, and establishing the architecture that the team builds on.
• Prototype and evaluate new planning approaches (e.g., optimization-based methods, search-based planners, learning-augmented pipelines) and bring the best ideas to production.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with perception, controls, localization, and systems engineering teams to deliver an integrated autonomous driving system.
• Establish and promote best practices in software development, functional safety, and systems engineering as they apply to the planning domain.
• Mentor other engineers through technical guidance, code review, and design discussions.

You Have:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Math, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Physics, or a related field.
• Extensive hands-on experience designing and implementing planning modules for autonomous systems shipped to production or deployed in real-world operations.
• Strong programming skills in C++ (preferred) or Python, and experience with Linux-based operating systems.
• Demonstrated ability to take ambiguous technical problems and drive them to well-architected solutions independently.
• Excellent communication skills, proactiveness, and a strong sense of ownership.

We Prefer:

• MS or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Robotics, or a related field.
• Mastery of Modern C++ (14 and beyond) and safety-critical coding practices (e.g., MISRA, ISO 26262).
• 5+ years of industry experience in planning for robotic ground vehicles.
• In-depth understanding of DDS frameworks like ROS/ROS2 or other networking middleware.
• Experience in startup environments, demonstrating adaptability to rapidly changing priorities.