Remote opportunity at
MotionalSenior Motion Planning Engineer - Safety-Layer
Motional is hiring a remote Senior Motion Planning Engineer to join its Safety-Layer Team and help develop autonomous vehicle technology. Motional operates as a joint venture…
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About This Role
Motional is hiring a remote Senior Motion Planning Engineer to join its Safety-Layer Team and help develop autonomous vehicle technology. Motional operates as a joint venture between Aptiv and Hyundai Motor Group, focusing on commercializing driverless vehicles and operating public robotaxi fleets. This role centers on ensuring autonomous vehicles execute proper dynamic trajectories in both routine and safety-critical situations, including managing system-wide overrides and performing evasive maneuvers at physical limits.…
Job Description
Motional is hiring a remote Senior Motion Planning Engineer to join its Safety-Layer Team and help develop autonomous vehicle technology. Motional operates as a joint venture between Aptiv and Hyundai Motor Group, focusing on commercializing driverless vehicles and operating public robotaxi fleets. This role centers on ensuring autonomous vehicles execute proper dynamic trajectories in both routine and safety-critical situations, including managing system-wide overrides and performing evasive maneuvers at physical limits.
The position suits engineers with a background in robotics or control theory who want to build safety-critical algorithms, work with simulation environments, and analyze fleet data. Responsibilities include algorithm design, software development, definition of performance and safety metrics, simulation evaluation, and in-vehicle testing requiring occasional travel. Qualified candidates will possess a strong foundation in modern C++ and several years of industrial experience developing motion planning and collision avoidance systems.
Responsibilities
- Design, implement, and test algorithms to synthesize and select trajectories that adhere to safety requirements
- Develop evasive maneuver planning algorithms for collision avoidance utilizing full vehicle actuation capacity
- Evaluate perception sensor modalities to improve the safety-layer identification of critical scenarios
- Build analysis and testing tools for isolated and system-level evaluation of safety components
- Validate and improve dynamic simulation environments and correlate simulation models with real-world data
- Define and implement safety, comfort, and performance metrics while analyzing fleet-wide vehicle data
- Support root-cause analysis for simulation, closed-course, and public road events
- Travel for in-vehicle testing at test track and deployment locations approximately once every four to six months
Requirements
- Minimum of 3 years of industrial experience developing motion planning and collision avoidance algorithms
- Strong proficiency in modern C++ programming with a focus on high-performance and reliable systems
- Familiarity with motion planning concepts such as numerical optimization, sampling-based approaches, cost-based trajectory selection, prediction models, and collision detection
- Understanding of dynamic collision modeling, convex set processing, state machine logic, and multi-rate decision-making processes
- Experience with Linux-based operating systems, agentic-based development tooling, and time-series data processing
Qualifications
- Master of Science or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Control Theory, Applied Math, or a related field
- Familiarity with machine learning techniques including supervised and reinforcement learning
- Knowledge of vehicle dynamics modeling including longitudinal and lateral models
- Academic publications in robotics, controls, or autonomous driving conferences and journals
- Familiarity with Python, SQL queries, GitLab, Bazel, VSCode, CLion, and industry simulation tooling
Core Skills
Benefits
- Medical coverage
- Dental coverage
- Vision coverage
- 401(k) plan with company match
- Health savings accounts
- Life insurance
- Pet insurance
- Discretionary additional compensation components such as a bonus or company equity
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers are based only on the employer’s listing; where it doesn’t say, neither do we.
What is the salary range for the Senior Motion Planning Engineer role?
The estimated base salary ranges from $172,000 to $229,000 per year, with potential for additional compensation such as bonuses or company equity.
Is this position remote?
Yes, the posting specifies that the role is remote, though occasional travel for in-person vehicle testing is required approximately once every four to six months.
What level of education is preferred for applicants?
A Master of Science degree is required, and a PhD is preferred, in fields such as Control Theory, Robotics, Computer Science, Applied Math, or a related discipline.
Sample Interview Questions
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