Motion Planning Engineer - Trajectory Generation

Motional•Boston, MA

3d•$142,000 - $190,000

About The Position

On our Motion team, you will have the unique opportunity to be part of a dynamic team consisting of world class talent that is responsible for delivering robust trajectory generation algorithms for Motional’s commercial driverless endeavors. You will leverage your expertise in motion planning, robotics, and software development to advance the capabilities of production-ready autonomous vehicles. In this role, you will conduct innovative research, lead design processes, and implement performance-critical algorithms that enable safe, comfortable, and intuitive autonomous vehicle behaviors across Motional’s fleet of robotaxis. You will have the opportunity to work cross functionally with different stakeholders in the motion planning and controls team. This role is at the intersection of product development and research. If you are passionate about autonomous driving, thrive on solving challenging optimization problems, and are eager to make a significant impact in a rapidly evolving field, we want to hear from you.

Requirements

0 - 3+ years of C++ software development (educational experience working on projects, internships, PhD research also counts)
Bachelors, Masters, or PhD degree preferred in Robotics, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
Experience with Model Predictive Control (MPC), motion planning, planning under uncertainty, vehicle dynamics and control, and simulation environments
Understanding of numerical optimization algorithms (interior point method, sequential quadratic programming, etc)
Experience with optimization solvers (IPOPT, Gurobi, etc)
Past experience owning and leading technical development on features from problem formulation, algorithm design, through implementation
Knowledge of Python is a bonus
Strong team player with excellent communication skills

Responsibilities

Develop state-of-the-art trajectory optimization algorithms to ensure safe and comfortable vehicle motion, and integrate with the overall motion planning architecture
Design and build robust and scalable software that enables real on-road impact by evaluating different control techniques and motion planning algorithms
Provides high-quality code and design reviews (C++) based on a deep understanding of the teams’ services and technologies
Leverage modern development toolchains, including testing, simulation, and continuous integration, to enable rapid development cycles
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 comprehensive and 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.