Staff Software Engineer, Autonomy Actions

Motional•Boston, MA

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

We are looking for a staff engineer to improve the quality, reliability, and robustness of our subsystems for decision making, motion planning, and controls. You will collaborate with the team to implement the highest value and highest priority quality improvements, including documenting and iterating ICDs, enhancing error checking, diagnostics and status reporting, improving compiler support and static analysis integration, eliminating memory allocation at runtime and building subsystem validation capabilities. Developing and deploying agentic AI agents to help with implementing and enforcing these new design and validation principals will be a key deliverable in this role. Your expertise will help the team deliver the critical quality initiatives before commercial driverless launch. You’ll work closely with subsystem owners and experts to implement the identified initiatives. Direct results will include enhanced software quality assessments before software reaches the vehicle, improved unrecoverable MRM rates, and root cause analysis of complex issues within the Planning and Controls stack reported by the triage team. You’ll have the opportunity to learn and advance your skills through the application of advanced AI agents, including agentic agents, to help streamline and enhance the development process. Present your work to the team to demonstrate how to maintain the highest level of software quality.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Robotics, or a related field.
Expertise in C++ software optimization and defensive programming for embedded systems (e.g., MISRA).
Experience with functional safety rated systems.
Comfortable navigating and contributing to large, complex codebases where modularity and documentation are key.
Experience designing and developing architecture and tools to verify complex subsystems of autonomous vehicles.
Experience in Interface Contract Documentation and contract enforcement.
Experience in compiler integration and optimization of complex code bases.
Capable of working across teams to identify, prioritize, and execute software quality and performance improvements.

Nice To Haves

Master’s or Ph.D. is preferred.
Experience with autonomous vehicles or vehicle automation systems.
Experience with functional safety processes and implementation.

Responsibilities

Improve the quality, reliability, and robustness of subsystems for decision making, motion planning, and controls.
Collaborate with the team to implement high-value, high-priority quality improvements.
Document and iterate on Interface Control Documents (ICDs).
Enhance error checking, diagnostics, and status reporting.
Improve compiler support and static analysis integration.
Eliminate memory allocation at runtime.
Build subsystem validation capabilities.
Develop and deploy agentic AI agents to aid in implementing and enforcing design and validation principles.
Work closely with subsystem owners and experts to implement identified initiatives.
Perform root cause analysis of complex issues within the Planning and Controls stack.
Present work to the team to demonstrate how to maintain the highest level of software quality.