{"id":69400,"url":"https://alion.io/job/kodiak-staff-software-engineer-mission-planning","title":"Staff Software Engineer, Mission Planning","company":{"id":29704,"name":"Kodiak","domain":"kodiak.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/kodiak","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":89,"open_postings":61,"ghost_share":0.098,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":76,"computed_at":"2026-10-20T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"staff","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Mountain View, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":200000,"max":250000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":250000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":6,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Motion Planning","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-03-13T22:40:11Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-30","last_verified_at":"2026-10-20T18:25:39Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":220,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":220},"description":"Kodiak Robotics, Inc. was founded in 2018 and has become a leader in autonomous ground transportation committed to a safer and more efficient future for all. The company has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) powered technology stack purpose-built for commercial trucking and the public sector. The company delivers freight daily for its customers across the southern United States using its autonomous technology. In 2024, Kodiak became the first known company to publicly announce delivering a driverless semi-truck to a customer. Kodiak is also leveraging its commercial self-driving software to develop, test and deploy autonomous capabilities for the U.S. Department of Defense.\nKodiak Robotics, Inc. was founded in 2018 and has become a leader in autonomous ground transportation committed to a safer and more efficient future for all. The company has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) powered technology stack purpose-built for commercial trucking and the public sector. The company delivers freight daily for its customers across the southern United States using its autonomous technology. In 2024, Kodiak became the first known company to publicly announce delivering a driverless semi-truck to a customer. Kodiak is also leveraging its commercial self-driving software to develop, test and deploy autonomous capabilities for the U.S. Department of Defense.\nKodiak is recruiting a Staff Software Engineer to lead design and development of mission planning, routing, and human-assisted autonomy for Kodiak driverless trucks. The role provides scope and visibility to influence the roadmap for the entire motion planning stack, including behavior, prediction, and trajectory generation.\nThis is an opportunity to collaborate with Product, Perception, Controls, and other cross-functional teams in order to improve overall autonomy performance. Customers interact with Kodiak trucks through mission assignments, making this a key engineering position to achieve product excellence.\nThe role spans a range of motion planning responsibilities, from graph traversal and routing, to mission planning and product development, to human-assisted autonomy and operations.\nIn this role, you will:\nLead the design and development of mission planning, routing, and human-assisted autonomy for driverless operation on public roads\nDevelop the architecture and long-term roadmap for motion planning\nIdentify metrics to orient engineering teams toward product excellence\nStudy the product for opportunities to delight our customers\nMentor and provide technical leadership to junior and senior engineers, raising the bar for engineering excellence across the engineering organization\nIntegrate onboard and offboard driving logic\nCollaborate with human-assisted autonomy and operations specialists to facilitate safe, efficient missions\nEvaluate the effectiveness of the Kodiak Driver\nAutomate and expedite truck launches and landings\nPartner cross-functionally with Perception, Controls, Systems, Simulation, and Product teams to define interfaces, requirements, and system behavior\nSolve difficult real-world problems involving route generation, mission updates, responsive driving, real-time and cloud computing, and more!\nWhat you’ll bring:\n6+ years of experience developing production-level robotics software\nStrong facility with modern C++\nExpertise in motion planning, graph theory, distributed computing, and related domains\nDelivery of complex autonomous systems\nLeadership to solve ambiguous, real-world challenges\nBonus points if you have:\nManaged or mentored robotics engineers\nDeployed software on autonomous vehicles\nBuilt a safety case for driverless autonomy\nImproved system performance (latency, throughput, reliability) in production environments\nBuilt on simulation frameworks\nBased decisions on data analysis\nWhat we offer:\nCompetitive compensation package including equity and annual bonuses\nExcellent Medical, Dental, and Vision plans through Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, and MetLife (including a medical plan with infertility benefits)\nMetLife Legal Services, Identity & Fraud Protection, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, Accident Insurance, & Critical Illness Insurance\nFlexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, and generous parental leave policies\nOur office is centrally located in Mountain View, CA\nOffice perks: dog-friendly, free catered lunch, a fully stocked kitchen, and free EV charging\nLong Term Disability, Short Term Disability, Life Insurance\nWellbeing Benefits - Headspace through Cigna, Calm through Kaiser, One Medical, Gympass, Spring Health through Cigna, Rula (mental health navigation) \nFidelity 401(k)\nCommuter, FSA, Dependent Care FSA, HSA\nVarious incentive programs (referral bonuses, patent bonuses, etc.)\nThe pay range listed below reflects the base salary in our SF/Silicon Valley location, across several internal levels. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors including: work location, experience, relevant training, education, skill level and performance during interview. Total compensation at Kodiak includes base pay, equity, bonus and a competitive benefits package\nCalifornia Pay Range\n$200,000—$250,000 USD\nAt Kodiak, we strive to build a diverse community working towards our common company goals in a safe and collaborative environment where harassment of any kind is strictly prohibited. Kodiak is committed to equal opportunity employment regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable law.\nIn alignment with its business operations, Kodiak adheres to all relevant statutes, regulations, and administrative prerequisites. Accordingly, roles that carry more sensitive requirements may be limited to candidates that can satisfy additional scrutiny and eligibility for such positions may hinge on verification of a candidate’s residence, U.S. person status, and/or citizenship status. Should the position require, and Kodiak determines that a candidate’s residence, U.S. person status, and/or citizenship status necessitate an export license, bar the candidate from the position, or otherwise fall under national security-related restrictions, Kodiak will consider the candidate for alternative positions unaffected by such restrictions, under terms and conditions set forth at Kodiak’s sole discretion, or, as an alternative, opt not to proceed with the candidate’s application. If applicable, Kodiak may provide visa sponsorship for eligible candidates.\nWe use a third-party AI tool (Endorsed) to assist in the initial screening of applications. As part of the evaluation process, we provide Endorsed with job requirements and candidate-submitted applications. Final hiring decisions are made by our human recruitment team, and no automated system makes the ultimate decision regarding hiring. Certain features of the platform may qualify it as an Automated Employment Decision Tool (AEDT) under applicable regulations. We began using Endorsed on January 1, 2026. You can review the independent bias audit report covering our use of Endorsed [here](https://endorsed.com/local-law-144). By submitting your application, you acknowledge that your application may be processed by AI systems as part of the screening and selection process. If you have any questions or would like to request a separate review of your application, please contact  with \"Separate Review Request\" in the email subject line.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7494,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":6,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Annual bonuses","Equity","Life insurance","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["C4ISR","Autonomous Driving","Logistics","Road Transport"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-03-13T22:40:11Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":15,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.549,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":220,"expected_fill_days":76,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-20T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":250000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/kodiak-staff-software-engineer-mission-planning","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/kodiak-staff-software-engineer-mission-planning.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-20T21:10:27Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":24625,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-21T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":29704},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=29704"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fkodiak-staff-software-engineer-mission-planning"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fkodiak-staff-software-engineer-mission-planning"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fkodiak-staff-software-engineer-mission-planning"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/kodiak-staff-software-engineer-mission-planning\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fkodiak-staff-software-engineer-mission-planning"}]}