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Staff Software Engineer, Mission Planning

Kodiak AI· Motion Planning
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Mountain View, CA$200k - $250kFull-timePosted 7mo ago

About the role

Lead design and development of mission planning, routing, and human-assisted autonomy for Kodiak driverless trucks; influence the motion planning stack roadmap and collaborate with cross-functional teams to improve autonomy performance.

Responsibilities

  • Lead the design and development of mission planning, routing, and human-assisted autonomy for driverless operation on public roads
  • Develop the architecture and long-term roadmap for motion planning
  • Identify metrics to orient engineering teams toward product excellence
  • Study the product for opportunities to delight our customers
  • Mentor and provide technical leadership to junior and senior engineers, raising the bar for engineering excellence across the engineering organization
  • Integrate onboard and offboard driving logic
  • Collaborate with human-assisted autonomy and operations specialists to facilitate safe, efficient missions
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of the Kodiak Driver
  • Automate and expedite truck launches and landings
  • Partner cross-functionally with Perception, Controls, Systems, Simulation, and Product teams to define interfaces, requirements, and system behavior
  • Solve difficult real-world problems involving route generation, mission updates, responsive driving, real-time and cloud computing, and more!

Qualifications

  • 6+ years of experience developing production-level robotics software
  • Strong facility with modern C++
  • Expertise in motion planning, graph theory, distributed computing, and related domains
  • Delivery of complex autonomous systems
  • Leadership to solve ambiguous, real-world challenges

Skills

Required:Robotics software developmentModern C++Motion planningGraph theoryDistributed computingLeadership / mentorship

Benefits

  • Competitive compensation package including equity and annual bonuses
  • Excellent Medical, Dental, and Vision plans through Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, and MetLife (including a medical plan with infertility benefits)
  • MetLife Legal Services, Identity & Fraud Protection, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, Accident Insurance, & Critical Illness Insurance
  • Flexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, and generous parental leave policies
  • Office perks: dog-friendly, free catered lunch, a fully stocked kitchen, and free EV charging
  • Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, Life Insurance
  • Wellbeing Benefits - Headspace through Cigna, Calm through Kaiser, One Medical, Gympass, Spring Health through Cigna, Rula (mental health navigation)
  • Fidelity 401(k)
  • Commuter, FSA, Dependent Care FSA, HSA
  • Various incentive programs (referral bonuses, patent bonuses, etc.)
Last updated Oct 21, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About Kodiak AI

Safely driving an autonomous future.

Our purpose-built autonomous solution, the Kodiak Driver, is the AV industry’s most advanced driverless technology, seamlessly integrating into any driving platform for reliable movement in any environment. Learn how we’re shaping the future of ground transportation.

autonomousdriverlessground transportationAI
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