Senior Software Engineer - Planning
About Applied Intuition
Applied Intuition, Inc. is powering the future of physical AI. Founded in 2017 and now valued at $15 billion, the Silicon Valley company is creating the digital infrastructure needed to bring intelligence to every moving machine on the planet. Applied Intuition services the automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining and agriculture industries in three core areas: tools and infrastructure, operating systems, and autonomy. Eighteen of the top 20 global automakers, as well as the United States military and its allies, trust the company’s solutions to deliver physical intelligence. Applied Intuition is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in Washington, D.C.; San Diego; Ft. Walton Beach, Florida; Ann Arbor, Michigan; London; Stuttgart; Munich; Stockholm; Bangalore; Seoul; and Tokyo. Learn more at applied.co.
We are an in-office company, and our expectation is that employees primarily work from their Applied Intuition office 5 days a week. However, we also recognize the importance of flexibility and trust our employees to manage their schedules responsibly. This may include occasional remote work, starting the day with morning meetings from home before heading to the office, or leaving earlier when needed to accommodate family commitments.
About the role
As a Motion Planning Engineer, you will design and ship deterministic, safety-critical planning systems that ensure autonomous vehicles behave safely when autonomy degrades or operates under uncertainty. This role emphasizes classical motion planning, predictable behavior, and large-scale evaluation, rather than deep learning-driven planning.
In addition to your engineering contributions, by working in our dynamic and customer-focused team culture, you will contribute to and learn from best practices in the nascent autonomy industry. We move fast and we focus on excellence, for our products and for our business. If you are hands-on and looking for a place to have a multiplying effect on making autonomous systems a reality, Applied is the place for you!
At Applied, you will:
Design and implement classical or ML motion planners for fallback and minimal-risk maneuvers.
Build planners that operate reliably under degraded perception, partial observability, and system faults. Define and execute safe, deterministic vehicle motions such as controlled slow-downs, pull-overs, and safe stops.
Use large-scale simulation and real-world data to evaluate planner behavior and guide parameter tuning. Develop metrics, analysis tools, and dashboards to understand planner performance at scale.
Collaborate closely with behavior prediction, perception, controls, safety, and remote assistance teams.
Contribute to a reusable fallback platform used across trucking and other autonomy programs.
We’re looking for someone who:
5+ years of experience in motion planning for autonomous vehicles or robotics.
Strong foundation in robotic motion planning algorithms and trajectory generation (optimization-, search-, or rule-based).
Experience building deterministic, safety-critical planning systems.
A data-driven mindset for large-scale evaluation, debugging, and tuning of planning behavior.
Proficiency in C++ and experience working in real-time systems.
Strong systems thinking and cross-functional collaboration skills.
Nice to have
Experience designing minimal-risk maneuvers (MRM) or emergency handling behaviors.
Familiarity with AV safety concepts, ODD constraints, or safety-case-driven development.
Experience using ML techniques for parameter tuning, calibration, or offline optimization.
Experience working with degraded sensors, uncertainty, or human-in-the-loop systems.
Background in simulation frameworks or large-scale log analysis.
Don’t meet every single requirement? If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.
Applied Intuition is an equal opportunity employer and federal contractor or subcontractor. Consequently, the parties agree that, as applicable, they will abide by the requirements of 41 CFR 60-1.4(a), 41 CFR 60-300.5(a) and 41 CFR 60-741.5(a) and that these laws are incorporated herein by reference. These regulations prohibit discrimination against qualified individuals based on their status as protected veterans or individuals with disabilities, and prohibit discrimination against all individuals based on their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin. These regulations require that covered prime contractors and subcontractors take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment individuals without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status or disability. The parties also agree that, as applicable, they will abide by the requirements of Executive Order 13496 (29 CFR Part 471, Appendix A to Subpart A), relating to the notice of employee rights under federal labor laws.