Sr. Staff Motion Planning Engineer, Autonomy

Rivian•Palo Alto, CA

16h

About The Position

We are seeking a Senior Staff Motion Planning Engineer to architect and lead the execution of core autonomous capabilities. In this role, you will move away from isolated component development to own entire technical verticals—harmonizing algorithm design, closed-loop evaluation, and systems level thinking to deliver complete, production-grade driving behaviors. Your work will sit at the intersection of classical robotics and data-driven intelligence, ensuring our vehicles operate with unparalleled safety and efficiency. If you are a seasoned engineer who thrives on solving high-dimensional problems, possesses a deep "data-first" mindset, and is ready to act as a technical pillar for the planning team, we want to hear from you.

Requirements

B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Robotics, Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
10+ years of experience in motion planning, behavioral planning, or decision-making for autonomous vehicles or complex robotic systems.
Expertise in C++ and Python: Ability to write production-grade, real-time C++ code and leverage Python for rapid prototyping and large-scale data analysis.
Data-Centric Mindset: Demonstrated experience using large datasets to inform algorithmic changes, rather than relying solely on manual "if-else" logic.
Strong Leadership Potential: Experience or high potential in technical leadership (TL/TLM), with a track record of guiding complex projects and mentoring peers.
Deep Knowledge of Robotics Fundamentals: Familiarity with optimization-based planning, state lattices, A/D, POMDPs, or similar motion planning frameworks.
Analytical Rigor: Strong background in building scalable metrics and evaluation frameworks to quantify autonomous behavior.
Communication Skills: Excellent ability to build consensus across teams and translate complex technical challenges into actionable roadmaps.
Hands-on Approach: Proactively identifies bottlenecks in the planning stack and "rolls up sleeves" to implement fixes in both simulation and on-vehicle environments.

Responsibilities

Own End-to-End Technical Verticals: Lead the design, integration, and deployment of complete autonomous capabilities (e.g., complex urban intersection navigation, dense highway maneuvering) by tying together algorithmic logic, system constraints, and metric frameworks.
Architect Holistic Evaluation Paradigms: Define and implement the overarching "eval" strategy for your technical verticals. Create sophisticated, multi-layered metrics that go beyond simple pass/fail to continuously quantify safety, comfort, and human-likeness across millions of simulation miles.
Synthesize Data-Driven & Classical Approaches: Lead the transition from rigid, heuristic-based decision-making to scalable, data-informed frameworks. Utilize petabyte-scale fleet data to uncover systemic gaps and fundamentally evolve planning behavior.
Cross-Functional Technical Orchestration: Serve as the primary technical authority aligning Product, Safety, Simulation, and Infrastructure teams to ensure your vertical capability can be seamlessly validated and deployed.
Architectural Oversight: Navigate the tradeoffs between computational efficiency and plan quality, ensuring the motion planning stack remains performant in real-time environments.
Foster Engineering Excellence: Promote a culture of clean, extendable C++ and Python code, ensuring the codebase is modular and collaborative.