Definition

Software Engineer - Planning

Applied Compute

Applied Compute

Software Engineering
Sunnyvale, CA, USA
Posted on Mar 6, 2026

Location

Sunnyvale

Employment Type

Full time

Department

Self-Driving Systems

About the role

We are looking for a software engineer with expertise in motion planning for autonomous vehicles or mobile robots. Among your responsibilities will be the development of planning modules that can provide traversable, kinematically-feasible trajectories for a vehicle to follow in various onroad autonomy use cases. The modules you develop must be high performance and state-of-the-art due to critical timing constraints and the need to generalize in diverse ODDs (operational design domains).

In addition to your engineering contributions, by working in our dynamic and customer-focused team culture, you will contribute to and learn from best practices in the nascent autonomy industry. We move fast and focus on excellence, for our products and for our business. If you are hands-on and looking for a place to have a multiplying effect on making autonomous systems a reality, Applied Intuition is the place for you!

At Applied Intuition, you will:

  • Develop state-of-the-art onroad behavior software and leverage ML components to achieve highway and city driving

  • Design and implement planning modules that can be deployed on onroad vehicles for autonomous navigation

  • Leverage lightweight map data (SD maps) and the outputs of a perception system to determine driving costs to use for planning

  • Deploy your planning modules to production hardware and test on the road

  • Collaborate with customers’ engineers and manage customer relationships

We're looking for someone who has:

  • Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or related field

  • 3+ years of experience building production software using modern software practices

  • Experience developing planning solutions for autonomous vehicles or other mobile robots

  • Fluency in writing modern, high-performance C++ code

  • Experience shipping code for robotics or autonomous vehicles

  • A passion for tackling challenging planning problems involving a wide array of vehicles

  • Enthusiasm for coming up with practical solutions to cutting-edge challenges in a fast-paced environment, and building towards an end-to-end strategy

Nice to have:

  • A MSc or PhD in computer science or applied mathematics with coursework or research experience in planning

  • Experience writing safety-critical C++ software

  • Hands-on experience developing and testing planning algorithms on an autonomous vehicle

Compensation at Applied Intuition for eligible roles includes base salary, equity, and benefits. Base salary is a single component of the total compensation package, which may also include equity in the form of options and/or restricted stock units, comprehensive health, dental, vision, life and disability insurance coverage, 401k retirement benefits with employer match, learning and wellness stipends, and paid time off. Note that benefits are subject to change and may vary based on jurisdiction of employment.

Applied Intuition pay ranges reflect the minimum and maximum intended target base salary for new hire salaries for the position. The actual base salary offered to a successful candidate will additionally be influenced by a variety of factors including experience, credentials & certifications, educational attainment, skill level requirements, interview performance, and the level and scope of the position.

Please reference the job posting’s subtitle for where this position will be located. For pay transparency purposes, the base salary range for this full-time position in the location listed is: $125,000 - $245,000 USD annually.