Staff Software Engineer, Motion Planning
Kodiak•Mountain View, CA
•$185,000 - $245,000
About The Position
Kodiak AI is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to build and improve behavior-planning and motion-planning systems for autonomous driving. The engineer will own planning features end to end, from design and implementation through validation, deployment, and analysis. The role focuses on real-world autonomous behavior and making safe, comfortable, and effective decisions in complex driving scenarios. It suits someone with strong planning experience who enjoys developing production-quality autonomy software and collaborating across the autonomy stack.
Requirements
- Leadership experience, ideally managing direct reports, and willingness to set an example through hands-on work.
- Experience in behavior planning, motion planning, decision-making, robotics, autonomous vehicles, or related areas.
- Strong software engineering skills, preferably in C++.
- Experience building autonomy software in industrial, production, or near-production environments.
- Ability to debug complex robotics or autonomy behavior using logs, metrics, and simulation.
- Strong system-level judgment around safety, comfort, and deployment readiness.
- Strong collaboration and communication skills.
Responsibilities
- Design, implement, and improve motion-planning features.
- Own planning projects from problem definition through deployment.
- Debug autonomy behavior using logs, simulation, metrics, and real-world data.
- Improve how the autonomy system balances safety, comfort, progress, and operational constraints.
- Collaborate with teams across Prediction, Controls, Perception, ML, Simulation, Systems, and Safety.
- Define success metrics and validation plans for planning features.
- Write production-quality C++ software.
- Participate in technical design reviews, code reviews, and architecture discussions.
- Lead and mentor junior and senior engineers.
Benefits
- Competitive compensation package including equity and annual bonuses.
- Medical, dental, and vision plans through Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, and MetLife, including a medical plan with infertility benefits.
- MetLife Legal Services, Identity & Fraud Protection, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, Accident Insurance, and Critical Illness Insurance.
- Flexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, and generous parental leave policies.
- Dog-friendly office, free catered lunch, a fully stocked kitchen, and free EV charging.
- Long-term disability, short-term disability, and life insurance.
- Wellbeing benefits including Headspace, Calm, One Medical, Gympass, Spring Health, and Rula.
- Fidelity 401(k).
- Commuter benefits, FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and HSA.
- Incentive programs including referral bonuses and patent bonuses.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
