Senior / Staff Robotics Engineer, Motion Planning

Responsibilities

• Dynamic Motion Planning: Architect and implement advanced local planners (e.g., optimization-based approaches like MPC, MPPI, or custom contouring control) that translate AI-generated routes into trajectories that a heavy, non-holonomic base can physically execute on uneven terrain.
• AI Integration & Costmap Consumption: Build the high-performance C++ pipelines that ingest the AI team's neural network outputs (semantic maps, learned costmaps) in real-time and convert them into deterministic mathematical constraints for the planner.
• Center of Mass (CoM) Aware Navigation: Ensure local planners dynamically adjust to real-time changes in the robot's Center of Mass caused by the lifting column and dual-arm payloads. Your trajectories must guarantee stability and prevent tipping on slopes or rough ground.
• Deterministic Safety Architectures: AI models hallucinate. You will build the deterministic C++ safety layer and fallback behaviors that override AI inputs if a commanded path violates physical safety constraints or if off-the-shelf SLAM tracking drops.
• WBC Integration: Architect the local planning interfaces to seamlessly pass base trajectories, velocity limits, and dynamic constraints to our upcoming Whole-Body Control (WBC) architecture, bridging the gap between base mobility and upper-body manipulation.

Requirements

• Education: Ph.D. in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, OR an M.S. degree with 4+ years of relevant industry experience.
• Motion Planning Expertise: Deep hands-on experience developing and tuning advanced local planners and trajectory optimization algorithms for mobile robots in complex, unstructured environments.
• Rigid Body Dynamics: Strong understanding of kinematics, vehicle dynamics, and center-of-mass constraints for top-heavy mobile robots operating on uneven outdoor terrain.
• C++ Performance Engineering: Expertise in modern C++ (C++17/20), with strict attention to real-time performance, memory management, and low-latency execution. You must be comfortable bridging high-latency AI outputs with hard real-time control loops.
• Field Deployment: Proven track record of building and deploying autonomous navigation stacks on real, physical robotic platforms in the wild.
• Requires 5 days/week in-office collaboration with the teams.

Bonus Qualifications

• WBC / Manipulation: Familiarity with Whole-Body Control frameworks, operational space control, and how mobile bases synchronize with high-DOF manipulators.
• Applied SLAM / State Estimation: Experience tuning, debugging, or filtering outputs from commercial SLAM/VIO systems when they fail in visually degraded environments.
• Slip & Traction Estimation: Background in detecting slip or loss of traction from proprioceptive sensor signals and adapting planning constraints accordingly.
• GPU Acceleration: Experience using CUDA to accelerate grid processing or trajectory sampling pipelines.

Benefits

• Competitive stock options/equity programs.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k) plan.
• Visa sponsorship and green card support for qualified candidates.
• Lunches and dinners, a fully stocked kitchen, and regular team-building events.

Compensation

Salary $160,000-$265,000 USD + Bonus + Equity

The base salary range above represents the expected compensation for this full-time U.S. position. Final compensation will be determined based on role scope, level, location, job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training, and may fall outside the listed range in exceptional cases.