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Senior Software Engineer, AV Planner - Autonomous Vehicles

NVIDIA· Engineer, Sys SW
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Santa Clara, CA$224k - $356.5kFull-timePosted 1mo ago

About the role

Senior Software Engineer specializing in AV planning for L4 autonomous vehicles, responsible for behavior and trajectory planning, integration with perception/prediction/mapping/controls, and development of robust planning algorithms and tools for urban robotaxi scenarios.

Responsibilities

  • Develop and ship behavior and trajectory planning for an L4 robotaxi (lane changes, merges, intersections, unprotected turns, yielding, stop-and-go, curbside operations).
  • Design planning technologies to build the AV software stack; write new modules from scratch for safe and comfortable urban driving.
  • Build optimization-, sampling-, and/or search-based planning approaches with vehicle dynamics and constraints (collision avoidance, comfort/jerk limits, road-rule compliance).
  • Define and implement fallback and degraded-mode behaviors; contribute to safety-oriented design (failure modes, redundancy, validation evidence).
  • Integrate planning with prediction, perception, mapping/localization, and controls; define interfaces and troubleshoot end-to-end issues using logs/scenario replay.
  • Build and improve offline and closed-loop simulation benchmarks and metrics for planning quality (safety, legality, comfort, progress).
  • Define and build tools to accelerate debugging, scenario triage/mining, evaluation automation, and parameter/config management across vehicle platforms.
  • Drive integration across platforms/vehicle types; support on-vehicle issue reproduction and resolution.
  • Contribute to groundbreaking and innovative technology and build a world-class system.

Qualifications

  • BS, MS, or higher in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent experience.
  • 12+ years of experience in the relevant field.
  • Strong software engineering skills in C/C++ (production-quality, performance-aware, testable code); Python experience for tooling/evaluation is a plus.
  • Knowledge in motion planning, decision-making, optimization, search, sampling-based planning, geometry, vehicle dynamics/kinematics, real-time systems.
  • Experience building and using simulation and evaluation pipelines, writing unit/integration tests, and preventing regressions via automation.
  • Strong debugging skills across multi-module systems; ability to translate ambiguous failures into actionable fixes.
  • Ability to communicate clearly and collaborate across functions (prediction/perception/controls/safety).

Skills

Required:C/C++Motion planningOptimization / search-based planningVehicle dynamics/kinematicsReal-time systemsSystem integrationDebugging multi-module systemsCommunication & collaboration
Nice to have:Python

Benefits

  • equity
  • benefits (see NVIDIA benefits page)
Last updated Sep 11, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

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