Senior Robotics Systems Software Engineer
About The Position
As a Senior Robotics Systems Software Engineer on Cyngn’s Autonomy team, you will develop, integrate, and deploy software across the autonomous driving stack for industrial vehicles. This role suits a robotics generalist who can work across subsystem boundaries and contribute to areas such as behavior and decision-making, motion planning, controls, localization, perception interfaces, simulation, and vehicle integration. You will collaborate with engineers across autonomy, vehicle infrastructure, hardware, QA, and deployment to turn robotics algorithms into reliable production systems operating on autonomous tuggers and forklifts at customer sites. The role includes bringing up and validating software on real vehicles, developing simulation and regression testing, investigating field issues, and supporting customer-site deployment. During the first 90 days, the engineer is expected to learn Cyngn’s autonomy architecture, simulation environment, vehicle platforms, and development and deployment processes; build cross-functional relationships; deliver a scoped production improvement; and propose a prioritized plan for addressing larger cross-stack risks. By six months, the engineer should complete a production-quality improvement spanning multiple subsystem boundaries, establish baseline metrics and show early improvement, add reusable testing or diagnostic resources, and publish an adopted technical design or process improvement. By 12 months, the engineer should demonstrate sustained production improvement, own a significant autonomy capability through deployment and monitoring, and improve team effectiveness through documentation, reviews, and reusable debugging practices.
Requirements
- BS, MS, or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
- At least 3 years of hands-on experience developing software for robotics, autonomous vehicles, or other autonomous systems.
- Strong proficiency in modern C++ and working proficiency in Python.
- Hands-on experience developing, testing, and deploying software on real robotic systems.
- Experience with ROS/ROS2 or comparable robotics middleware.
- Working knowledge of core robotics concepts, including coordinate frames, kinematics, state estimation, motion planning, feedback control, and sensor integration.
- Strong systems-level understanding of how autonomy software components interact with each other and with vehicle hardware.
- Experience debugging complex robotic systems where failures may span multiple software modules or hardware interfaces.
- Strong software engineering fundamentals, including algorithms, data structures, software architecture, testing, and code review.
- Strong communication and problem-solving skills, and ability to work effectively across multiple engineering disciplines.
Nice To Haves
- Technical depth in at least one robotics or autonomous systems area, such as behavior and decision-making, motion planning, or vehicle or motion control.
- Experience developing autonomous vehicles, mobile robots, industrial robots, or similar systems.
- Experience with behavior trees, state machines, or other architectures for autonomous decision-making.
- Experience with search-based or sampling-based motion planning techniques such as A, Hybrid A, RRT, or related algorithms.
- Experience with feedback control, vehicle dynamics, trajectory tracking, MPC, or optimization-based control.
- Experience with simulation environments and automated autonomy testing.
- Experience integrating sensors, actuators, drive-by-wire systems, or embedded/real-time components.
- Experience developing tooling, metrics, and CI/CD infrastructure for robotic systems.
- Familiarity with Linux, Git, Docker, CMake, and modern software development workflows.
- Experience taking robotics functionality from prototype through validation and production deployment.
Responsibilities
- Design, develop, test, and deploy software for autonomous industrial vehicles across behavior and decision-making, motion planning, controls, and vehicle systems.
- Write and maintain production-quality C++ and Python software for Cyngn’s autonomous vehicle platforms.
- Develop and integrate algorithms for navigation, trajectory generation, vehicle control, obstacle handling, and autonomous behaviors.
- Integrate autonomy software with sensors, drive-by-wire systems, vehicle hardware, and other onboard software components.
- Bring up, validate, and debug software on real vehicles, tracing issues across autonomy modules, middleware, hardware interfaces, and vehicle behavior.
- Develop simulation scenarios, testing infrastructure, metrics, and regression tests to validate autonomy behavior before deployment.
- Investigate field issues and edge cases, reproduce failures, identify root causes, and implement robust production solutions.
- Support deployment and validation of autonomous vehicles at customer facilities, translating real-world observations into improvements across the autonomy stack.
- Collaborate with engineers in Planning, Controls, Perception, Localization, Vehicle Infrastructure, Hardware, QA, and Operations.
- Participate in architecture discussions, code reviews, technical design, and continuous improvement of Cyngn’s autonomy software.
- Own a significant autonomy capability from design through implementation, vehicle validation, deployment, and production monitoring.
- Contribute to team effectiveness through documentation, code and design reviews, and reusable cross-stack debugging practices.
Benefits
- Health benefits (Medical, Dental, Vision) through Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, and Guardian, with multiple plan tiers to choose from.
- Ancillary benefits including accident, critical illness, and hospital indemnity plans through Voya.
- Company-paid basic life insurance, plus voluntary supplemental life insurance for employees and dependents.
- Fully paid short-term and long-term disability insurance.
- HSA and FSA, including Health and Dependent Daycare options.
- Employee Assistance Program.
- 1:1 Health Concierge.
- Company 401(k).
- Commuter benefits.
- Flexible PTO policy.
- Paid Parental Leave.
- Daily lunches for in-office employees and a fully stocked kitchen with snacks and beverages.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
