{"id":698321,"url":"https://alion.io/job/plus-seniorstaff-software-engineer-motion-planning","title":"Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Motion Planning","company":{"id":22363,"name":"PlusAI","domain":"plus.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/plus","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Lever","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":73,"open_postings":43,"ghost_share":0.442,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":51,"computed_at":"2026-11-10T06:52:35Z"}},"role":"Robotics","role_family":"Robotics","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Santa Clara, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":130000,"max":220000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":220000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":3,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Motion Planning","optional":false},{"name":"Path Planning","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"ROS","optional":false},{"name":"Imitation Learning","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-27T20:28:02Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-27","last_verified_at":"2026-11-11T01:32:33Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":75,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":74},"description":"About the Team\nThe Planning team is responsible for making sure PlusAI’s trucks make the right decision in every driving situation, safely, smoothly, and predictably for other road users, even when working with noisy, uncertain, or incomplete information about the world. This is a cross-functional problem that requires close collaboration with Perception, Prediction, Controls, and Safety, and a willingness to work at the edge of research and production: bringing state-of-the-art decision-making and optimization techniques into a system that runs on real trucks, on real roads, today.\nAbout the Role\nAs a Senior Software Engineer on the Motion Planning team, you’ll research, develop, and implement planning technologies that let PlusAI’s trucks handle complex, real-world driving scenarios in a safe and human-like manner. You’ll work across the full decision-making stack, from reasoning about what the truck should do to determining precisely how it should get there, while accounting for the many ways a scenario could unfold.\nResponsibilities\nDesign and implement algorithms for decision-making and trajectory generation, ensuring safety, comfort, and reliability across a wide range of driving conditions.\nBring novel robotics and machine learning techniques from research into a production-grade, safety-critical system.\nReason about complex, socially-nuanced driving situations, such as negotiating merges, junctions, and interactions with other road users, under uncertainty.\nUtilize modern C++ numerical optimization frameworks (e.g., CasADi, Acados) and industry-standard tooling (git, ROS, etc.) to integrate new planning algorithms into the production stack.\nPartner closely with the ML and prediction teams to integrate, refine, and act on probabilistic and multi-future representations of how a scenario might evolve, shaping how these outputs are consumed by planning decisions.\nPerform system-level diagnostics and tuning using in-house and open-source visualization tools (e.g., webviz).\nCollaborate cross-functionally and communicate clearly, producing system designs that are reviewed and approved at a high level before implementation begins.\nRequired skills\nMS with 1-2 years of relevant experience, or PhD, in Computer Science, Robotics, or a related field.\nStrong production software development skills in C++; Python experience a plus.\nRobotics expertise in one or more of: path planning, motion planning, trajectory generation, behavior planning, optimal control.\nStrong math (geometry, analysis, probability) and physics (kinematics, dynamics) fundamentals.\nExperience designing, implementing, and refining planning algorithms on a real-world robotic or vehicle platform.\nStrong oral and written communication skills, with the ability to collaborate across teams and derive solutions 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