Trajectory Optimization Engineer – Motion Planning

Motional; Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); On-site; USD 142,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

401k with company match

Health saving accounts

Life insurance

Pet insurance

Job summary

Motional on our Motion team is seeking talented engineers to advance trajectory optimization and motion planning for autonomous vehicles. You will develop production-ready C++ software and collaborate across teams to deliver safe, comfortable robotaxi behavior.

We value research-driven minds who can design scalable algorithms, review code, and contribute to performance-critical systems using MPC, optimization and simulation. Strong collaboration and communication are essential.

Qualifications

• 0–3+ years of C++ software development (educational experience counts).
• Bachelor's/Master's/PhD preferred in Robotics, CS, CE, or Electrical Engineering.
• Experience with Model Predictive Control (MPC), motion planning, planning under uncertainty, vehicle dynamics and simulation environments.
• Experience with optimization solvers IPOPT, Gurobi, etc.
• Python experience is a bonus.
• Strong team player with excellent communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Understands and explains trade-offs, complex concepts to peers and leaders to drive decisions.
• Collaborate with teams working on (ML) decision/behavior planning, prediction, and vehicle control to build integrated solutions.
• Creates project proposals that drive long-term technical roadmaps and span multiple sub-systems.
• Mentor junior team members to develop a culture of product-focused engineering, research, and development.

Skills

C++ development

Motion planning

Model Predictive Control

Python

Vehicle dynamics

Optimization algorithms

Education

Bachelor's/Master's/PhD in Robotics/CS/CE/EE

Tools

IPOPT

Gurobi

Job description

Motional on our Motion team is seeking talented engineers to advance trajectory optimization and motion planning for autonomous vehicles. You will develop production-ready C++ software and collaborate across teams to deliver safe, comfortable robotaxi behavior.

We value research-driven minds who can design scalable algorithms, review code, and contribute to performance-critical systems using MPC, optimization and simulation. Strong collaboration and communication are essential.