Senior Engineer - Motion Planning and Controls, Autonomous Driving
Lucid Motors2 months ago
Base Salary
$158k - $218k/yr
Responsibilities
- Develop trajectory optimization algorithms, including iLQR and MPC-based approaches, for low-speed scenarios.
- Design constraint-aware optimization and improve local planners to generate control-friendly trajectories.
- Refactor and scale planning-stack architecture for maintainability and extensibility across scenarios and vehicle platforms.
- Optimize CPU usage and investigate parallel or GPU acceleration opportunities.
- Debug curvature discontinuities, velocity/trajectory mismatches, edge-case steering behavior, and other real-world issues.
- Validate solutions using simulation, vehicle logs, multi-scenario testing, and benchmarking.
- Prototype and evaluate new planning approaches, including learned models, barrier functions, and ML-based planning.
- Benchmark planning algorithms for production viability and contribute to next-generation ML-driven planning initiatives.
- Lead technical discussions, document algorithm insights, support knowledge transfer, and track work in Jira with clear metrics and reproducible results.
Requirements
- M.S. or Ph.D. in Robotics, Control, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
- At least 2 years of software development experience in autonomous driving, ADAS, or robotics, focused on large-scale data and real-time systems.
- Strong programming skills in C/C++ and understanding of software engineering design principles and best practices.
- Experience delivering ADAS/autonomous-driving features through requirements analysis, architecture and design, implementation, unit testing, feature tuning, SIL/HIL validation, and in-vehicle deployment.
- Hands-on experience integrating software on embedded platforms such as NVIDIA Xavier/Orin or Infineon Aurix.
- Ability to build reliable production-grade systems, including large-scale architectures, evaluation pipelines, and performance-optimized models.
- Preferred: experience with ML-based planning, GPU or parallel computing for planning, and production deployment in real vehicles.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance; life and disability coverage; paid time off; paid holidays; and a 401(k) retirement plan.
- Eligible employees may participate in an equity program and/or discretionary annual cash incentive program.
- The role is based in Newark, California and requires onsite work five days per week.
About Lucid Motors
We launched Lucid in 2016 to build the world’s best cars and accelerate the shift to clean energy. Our vehicles deliver best-in-class performance *and* efficiency. Equally important, we’re building a world-class team: From our state-of-the-art factory in Arizona to our global headquarters in California’s Silicon Valley, we’re recruiting high-performing people who want to help decarbonize Earth. Join us!