Aerospace Engineer Jobs in Las Vegas.
All active Aerospace Engineer roles based in Las Vegas.
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Senior Test Pilot - Group 5
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Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.
At Anduril we are developing unmanned aerial systems capable of terminal guidance, long range intelligence collection, precision relative and global navigation, and unsupervised autonomy. The Test and Evaluation team works across the entire spectrum of products ranging from Lattice Ghost UAS, Sentry Tower, cUAS, missile, Fury and many of our other platforms.
As a Group 5 Test Pilot, you will support the development and field testing of Anduril’s largest and most powerful Unmanned Aerial System products. In this role, you will prepare aircraft for flight, conduct flight tests as the test pilot, and support the test engineering team throughout the lifecycle of the developmental aircraft.
WHAT YOU’LL DO
- Collaborate closely with Flight Test Engineers and Discipline Engineers to develop safe, effective, and efficient test procedures, evaluate system and test safety, and verify the functional design of the system.
- Participate in ground and flight testing of developmental aircraft to determine compliance with specifications, validate airworthiness, and assess operational suitability.
- Assist in developing system test procedures and engage in laboratory and surrogate open-air environment testing.
- Serve as a guiding member within the Test and Evaluation team, regularly interfacing with the T&E lead, T&E Technical Director, Chief Test Pilot, Lead Flight Test Engineer, and customer representatives.
- Take direct responsibility for the safe flight of the aircraft and act as an advisor during safety reviews, design reviews, and airworthiness reviews.
- Expand the mission envelope by pushing the boundaries of safe and normal flight.
- Support Fury flight tests as a surrogate and chase pilot, flying high-performance jet aircraft in demanding roles including photo/video, air data pacer, and safety chase across the flight envelope.
- Participate in flight operations and help direct the flight test program.
- Collaborate with other test pilots to approve control station configurations, author flight procedures, develop and verify emergency procedures, and support test team and control room training.
- Review test procedures, flight test plans, flight test cards, operating limitations, flight test schedules, support documents, and ground handling documents in preparation for ground and flight testing.
- Attend system design and configuration control meetings, providing input to resolve change requests and determining change priority, timelines, and test verification requirements leading up to software releases and aircraft block changes.
- Develop creative solutions to technical and execution challenges, acting with a bias for action and engaging your team to solve problems efficiently.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Graduate of a U.S. military test pilot school (TPS) or meet DCMAINST 8210.1 series alternate education and experience qualifications for contractor UA pilot/operator.
- 5+ years experience as a Group 5 UAV pilot.
- 2,000 hours Pilot-in-Command time or 500 hours in unmanned aircraft.
- Qualifying hours must include 200 hours Pilot-in-Command during engineering flight test and 10 hours during experimental flight test.
- Commercial pilot certificate with instrument rating.
- FAA Class 2 Medical, renewed annually.
- One of the following education and experience combinations:
- Undergraduate or higher degree in aerospace-related engineering or scientific discipline plus one year of applicable engineering test flight experience.
- Undergraduate or higher degree in other engineering or scientific discipline plus two years of applicable engineering test flight experience.
- Non-engineering undergraduate or higher degree plus three years of applicable engineering test flight experience.
- No degree plus four years of applicable engineering test flight experience.
- Ability to travel as required to support off-site aircraft testing.
- Strong ability to quickly understand new concepts, apply them accurately, organize, schedule, and coordinate work phases, and determine appropriate approaches to complex problems.
- Excellent written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills, especially regarding technical subjects and authoring technical documents supporting safe aircraft operation.
- Experience authoring flight manuals and technical documentation necessary to operate developmental aircraft and delivering configuration-controlled publications to customers.
- Proficiency with basic MS Office tools (Word, PowerPoint, Excel).
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team; capable of performing complex tasks.
- Willingness to work extended and irregular hours.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. TS/SCI security clearance.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- 10+ years experience as a Group 5 UAV pilot working with developmental aircraft.
- 2,000 hours Pilot-in-Command time or 500 hours in unmanned aircraft.
- ATP certificate with Class 1 medical.
- Certified Flight Instructor / Instrument.
The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:
Benefits
At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.
Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams
Anduril is committed to maintaining the integrity of our Talent acquisition process and the security of our candidates. We've observed a rise in sophisticated phishing and fraudulent schemes where individuals impersonate Anduril representatives, luring job seekers with false interviews or job offers. These scammers often attempt to extract payment or sensitive personal information.
To ensure your safety and help you navigate your job search with confidence, please keep the following critical points in mind:
-
No Financial Requests: Anduril will never solicit payment or demand personal financial details (such as banking information, credit card numbers, or social security numbers) at any stage of our hiring process. Our legitimate recruitment is entirely free for candidates.
- Please always verify communications:
- Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an
@anduril.comaddress. - Via Agency Partner: If contacted by a recruiting agency for an Anduril role, their email will clearly identify their agency. If you suspect any suspicious activity, please verify the agency's authenticity by reaching out to contact@anduril.com.
- Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an
-
Exercise Caution with Unsolicited Outreach: If you receive any communication that appears suspicious, contains grammatical errors, or makes unusual requests, do not engage. Always confirm the sender's email domain is @anduril.com before providing any personal information or clicking on links.
-
What to Do If You Suspect Fraud: Should you encounter any questionable or fraudulent outreach claiming to be from Anduril, please report it immediately to contact@anduril.com. Your proactive caution is invaluable in protecting your personal information and upholding the security and trustworthiness of our recruitment efforts.
Data Privacy
To view Anduril's candidate data privacy policy, please visit https://anduril.com/applicant-privacy-notice/.
By submitting your application, you consent to Anduril Industries using a third-party service provider to conduct pre-employment risk, integrity, and due diligence screening and assessing potential risks as part of your application process. This third-party service provider provides risk-intelligence services that may include analysis of sanctions and watchlists, adverse media, public-record information, and other lawful open-source or commercial data sources. This third-party service provider does not act as a consumer reporting agency. Use of this provider helps to ensure compliance with applicable laws and protect technology, intellectual property, and organizational security.
Ready to apply?
Apply to Anduril Industries
Principal Engineer Team Lead - Trajectory Planning Lead
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Mission Summary:
As a Technical Lead Manager at Motional, you'll lead a team responsible for the development and delivery of core trajectory planning algorithms via numerical optimization for autonomous vehicles. In this role, you will be at the forefront of shaping the motion planning and control systems that enable our fleet to navigate complex environments safely, efficiently, and comfortably. As a key leader, you will drive the development and continuous performance improvements of cutting-edge trajectory generation algorithms, collaborate with cross-functional teams (Planning, Perception, Prediction, Localization, ML Products, and Systems Engineering), and mentor a talented group of highly skilled engineers to deliver state-of-the-art solutions.
If you are passionate about autonomous driving and being part of our commercial launch this year, thrive on solving challenging real-world problems, and eager to make a significant impact in a rapidly evolving field, we want to hear from you!
What you'll do:
- Lead and scale a high-impact trajectory planning team, defining its technical vision, execution strategy, and long-term organizational role within the Motion organization.
- Drive commercial launch readiness for trajectory planning by delivering on-road driving behavior improvements (safety, comfort, and assertiveness) across the fleet through feature expansion, continuous performance improvements, and innovation through state-of-the art methods.
- Apply a rigorous, metrics-driven framework to quantify and improve on-road performance. Champion leveraging existing training and evaluation pipelines to ensure scalable, production-ready delivery.
- Manage the computational efficiency and real-time performance of trajectory generation algorithms, ensuring latency budget compliance.
- Lead the rapid triage and root-cause analysis (RCA) of critical fleet incidents, translating real-world edge cases into immediate algorithmic refinements and validation sets.
- Oversee the successful execution of complex, multi-team initiatives, ensuring technical alignment from design through deployment while maintaining a rigorous standard for testing and validation to meet the high safety bars required for our commercial launch.
- Coordinate with peer leads to provide technical leadership, making consequential decisions on architectural direction, strategic investments, tactical execution, and technical debt reduction.Ensure technical excellence through rigorous design and code reviews while actively facilitating the professional growth and mentorship of your engineering team. Set and drive ambitious goals that challenge the team to deliver industry-leading trajectory planning solutions.
- Define and negotiate quarterly and annual technical roadmaps aligned with company-level autonomy milestones in coordinate with project managers and execute plans on schedule.
What we're looking for:
- Proven Engineering Leadership: 2+ years of experience managing high-performing development teams, with a demonstrable track record of inspiring, mentoring, and coaching engineers and driving measurable productivity gains.
- Ship-to-Production Mindset: Experience leading the delivery of production-quality algorithms in a high-stakes environment (Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics, or Aerospace). You know what it takes to move from a prototype to a commercially viable product.
- Strategic Vision: Ability to look beyond the immediate deliverables to define and defend a balanced technical roadmap that balances long-term architectural health with the urgent needs of a 2026 commercial launch.
- Technical Domain Expertise: Deep theoretical and practical expertise in numerical optimization and optimal control. You should be highly proficient in areas such as Model Predictive Control, nonlinear programming, and convex optimization applied to real-time trajectory generation.
- Advanced Motion Planning: Significant experience solving motion planning problems under uncertainty, including interaction-aware planning with dynamic agents and complex environmental constraints. Experience with Machine Learning based approaches is a significant plus.
- Full-Stack Robotics Context: Strong intuition for the entire robotics stack. You understand how upstream (Perception, Prediction) and downstream (Control, Actuation) systems impact trajectory feasibility and fleet safety.
- Production-Grade Software Development: Expertise in Modern C++ development within a Linux environment, with a focus on writing high-performance, real-time, and safety-critical code.
- Tooling Proficiency: Fluency in Python for rapid prototyping, data analysis, and visualization. Experience applying AI-augmented development workflows to large-scale Modern C++ codebases (e.g., agentic tools for multi-file refactoring, automated test generation, semantic code navigation, and code review acceleration) is strongly preferred. Experience with SQL or big-data frameworks for fleet-scale performance analysis is a significant plus.
- Influence & Clarity: Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to translate complex mathematical concepts into actionable plans for cross-functional stakeholders and executive leadership.
- Educational Foundation: Master’s or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical/Mechanical Engineering, or a related quantitative field.
We encourage a hybrid schedule with in-office time at one of our locations in Boston, Pittsburgh, or Las Vegas to support collaboration, or this role can be fully remote.
The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors including but not limited to specific skills, experience and expertise, role location, certifications, licenses, and business needs. The estimated compensation range listed in this job posting reflects base salary only. This role may include additional forms of compensation such as a bonus or company equity. The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process.
Candidates for certain positions are eligible to participate in Motional’s benefits program. Motional’s benefits include but are not limited to medical, dental, vision, 401k with a company match, health saving accounts, life insurance, pet insurance, and more.
Motional is a driverless technology company making autonomous vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. We’re driven by something more.
Our journey is always people first.
We aren't just developing driverless cars; we're creating safer roadways, more equitable transportation options, and making our communities better places to live, work, and connect. Our team is made up of engineers, researchers, innovators, dreamers and doers, who are creating a technology with the potential to transform the way we move.
Higher purpose, greater impact.
We’re creating first-of-its-kind technology that will transform transportation. To do so successfully, we must design for everyone in our cities and on our roads. We believe in building a great place to work through a progressive, global culture that is diverse, inclusive, and ensures people feel valued at every level of the organization. Diversity helps us to see the world differently; it’s not only good for our business, it’s the right thing to do.
Scale up, not starting up.
Our team is behind some of the industry's largest leaps forward, including the first fully-autonomous cross-country drive in the U.S, the launch of the world's first robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world's longest-standing public robotaxi fleet. We’re driven to scale; we’re moving towards commercialization of our technology, and we need team members who are ready to embrace change and challenges.
Formed as a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, Motional is fundamentally changing how people move through their lives. Headquartered in Boston, Motional has operations in the U.S and Asia. For more information, visit www.Motional.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
Motional AD Inc. is an EOE. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. To comply with Federal Law, we participate in E-Verify. All newly-hired employees are queried through this electronic system established by the DHS and the SSA to verify their identity and employment eligibility.
Ready to apply?
Apply to Motional
Principal Engineer Team Lead - Trajectory Planning Lead
Share this job
Mission Summary:
As a Technical Lead Manager at Motional, you'll lead a team responsible for the development and delivery of core trajectory planning algorithms via numerical optimization for autonomous vehicles. In this role, you will be at the forefront of shaping the motion planning and control systems that enable our fleet to navigate complex environments safely, efficiently, and comfortably. As a key leader, you will drive the development and continuous performance improvements of cutting-edge trajectory generation algorithms, collaborate with cross-functional teams (Planning, Perception, Prediction, Localization, ML Products, and Systems Engineering), and mentor a talented group of highly skilled engineers to deliver state-of-the-art solutions.
If you are passionate about autonomous driving and being part of our commercial launch this year, thrive on solving challenging real-world problems, and eager to make a significant impact in a rapidly evolving field, we want to hear from you!
What you'll do:
- Lead and scale a high-impact trajectory planning team, defining its technical vision, execution strategy, and long-term organizational role within the Motion organization.
- Drive commercial launch readiness for trajectory planning by delivering on-road driving behavior improvements (safety, comfort, and assertiveness) across the fleet through feature expansion, continuous performance improvements, and innovation through state-of-the art methods.
- Apply a rigorous, metrics-driven framework to quantify and improve on-road performance. Champion leveraging existing training and evaluation pipelines to ensure scalable, production-ready delivery.
- Manage the computational efficiency and real-time performance of trajectory generation algorithms, ensuring latency budget compliance.
- Lead the rapid triage and root-cause analysis (RCA) of critical fleet incidents, translating real-world edge cases into immediate algorithmic refinements and validation sets.
- Oversee the successful execution of complex, multi-team initiatives, ensuring technical alignment from design through deployment while maintaining a rigorous standard for testing and validation to meet the high safety bars required for our commercial launch.
- Coordinate with peer leads to provide technical leadership, making consequential decisions on architectural direction, strategic investments, tactical execution, and technical debt reduction.Ensure technical excellence through rigorous design and code reviews while actively facilitating the professional growth and mentorship of your engineering team. Set and drive ambitious goals that challenge the team to deliver industry-leading trajectory planning solutions.
- Define and negotiate quarterly and annual technical roadmaps aligned with company-level autonomy milestones in coordinate with project managers and execute plans on schedule.
What we're looking for:
- Proven Engineering Leadership: 2+ years of experience managing high-performing development teams, with a demonstrable track record of inspiring, mentoring, and coaching engineers and driving measurable productivity gains.
- Ship-to-Production Mindset: Experience leading the delivery of production-quality algorithms in a high-stakes environment (Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics, or Aerospace). You know what it takes to move from a prototype to a commercially viable product.
- Strategic Vision: Ability to look beyond the immediate deliverables to define and defend a balanced technical roadmap that balances long-term architectural health with the urgent needs of a 2026 commercial launch.
- Technical Domain Expertise: Deep theoretical and practical expertise in numerical optimization and optimal control. You should be highly proficient in areas such as Model Predictive Control, nonlinear programming, and convex optimization applied to real-time trajectory generation.
- Advanced Motion Planning: Significant experience solving motion planning problems under uncertainty, including interaction-aware planning with dynamic agents and complex environmental constraints. Experience with Machine Learning based approaches is a significant plus.
- Full-Stack Robotics Context: Strong intuition for the entire robotics stack. You understand how upstream (Perception, Prediction) and downstream (Control, Actuation) systems impact trajectory feasibility and fleet safety.
- Production-Grade Software Development: Expertise in Modern C++ development within a Linux environment, with a focus on writing high-performance, real-time, and safety-critical code.
- Tooling Proficiency: Fluency in Python for rapid prototyping, data analysis, and visualization. Experience applying AI-augmented development workflows to large-scale Modern C++ codebases (e.g., agentic tools for multi-file refactoring, automated test generation, semantic code navigation, and code review acceleration) is strongly preferred. Experience with SQL or big-data frameworks for fleet-scale performance analysis is a significant plus.
- Influence & Clarity: Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to translate complex mathematical concepts into actionable plans for cross-functional stakeholders and executive leadership.
- Educational Foundation: Master’s or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical/Mechanical Engineering, or a related quantitative field.
We encourage a hybrid schedule with in-office time at one of our locations in Boston, Pittsburgh, or Las Vegas to support collaboration, or this role can be fully remote.
The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors including but not limited to specific skills, experience and expertise, role location, certifications, licenses, and business needs. The estimated compensation range listed in this job posting reflects base salary only. This role may include additional forms of compensation such as a bonus or company equity. The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process.
Candidates for certain positions are eligible to participate in Motional’s benefits program. Motional’s benefits include but are not limited to medical, dental, vision, 401k with a company match, health saving accounts, life insurance, pet insurance, and more.
Motional is a driverless technology company making autonomous vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. We’re driven by something more.
Our journey is always people first.
We aren't just developing driverless cars; we're creating safer roadways, more equitable transportation options, and making our communities better places to live, work, and connect. Our team is made up of engineers, researchers, innovators, dreamers and doers, who are creating a technology with the potential to transform the way we move.
Higher purpose, greater impact.
We’re creating first-of-its-kind technology that will transform transportation. To do so successfully, we must design for everyone in our cities and on our roads. We believe in building a great place to work through a progressive, global culture that is diverse, inclusive, and ensures people feel valued at every level of the organization. Diversity helps us to see the world differently; it’s not only good for our business, it’s the right thing to do.
Scale up, not starting up.
Our team is behind some of the industry's largest leaps forward, including the first fully-autonomous cross-country drive in the U.S, the launch of the world's first robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world's longest-standing public robotaxi fleet. We’re driven to scale; we’re moving towards commercialization of our technology, and we need team members who are ready to embrace change and challenges.
Formed as a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, Motional is fundamentally changing how people move through their lives. Headquartered in Boston, Motional has operations in the U.S and Asia. For more information, visit www.Motional.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
Motional AD Inc. is an EOE. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. To comply with Federal Law, we participate in E-Verify. All newly-hired employees are queried through this electronic system established by the DHS and the SSA to verify their identity and employment eligibility.
Ready to apply?
Apply to Motional
Principal Engineer Team Lead - Trajectory Planning Lead
Share this job
Mission Summary:
As a Technical Lead Manager at Motional, you'll lead a team responsible for the development and delivery of core trajectory planning algorithms via numerical optimization for autonomous vehicles. In this role, you will be at the forefront of shaping the motion planning and control systems that enable our fleet to navigate complex environments safely, efficiently, and comfortably. As a key leader, you will drive the development and continuous performance improvements of cutting-edge trajectory generation algorithms, collaborate with cross-functional teams (Planning, Perception, Prediction, Localization, ML Products, and Systems Engineering), and mentor a talented group of highly skilled engineers to deliver state-of-the-art solutions.
If you are passionate about autonomous driving and being part of our commercial launch this year, thrive on solving challenging real-world problems, and eager to make a significant impact in a rapidly evolving field, we want to hear from you!
What you'll do:
- Lead and scale a high-impact trajectory planning team, defining its technical vision, execution strategy, and long-term organizational role within the Motion organization.
- Drive commercial launch readiness for trajectory planning by delivering on-road driving behavior improvements (safety, comfort, and assertiveness) across the fleet through feature expansion, continuous performance improvements, and innovation through state-of-the art methods.
- Apply a rigorous, metrics-driven framework to quantify and improve on-road performance. Champion leveraging existing training and evaluation pipelines to ensure scalable, production-ready delivery.
- Manage the computational efficiency and real-time performance of trajectory generation algorithms, ensuring latency budget compliance.
- Lead the rapid triage and root-cause analysis (RCA) of critical fleet incidents, translating real-world edge cases into immediate algorithmic refinements and validation sets.
- Oversee the successful execution of complex, multi-team initiatives, ensuring technical alignment from design through deployment while maintaining a rigorous standard for testing and validation to meet the high safety bars required for our commercial launch.
- Coordinate with peer leads to provide technical leadership, making consequential decisions on architectural direction, strategic investments, tactical execution, and technical debt reduction.Ensure technical excellence through rigorous design and code reviews while actively facilitating the professional growth and mentorship of your engineering team. Set and drive ambitious goals that challenge the team to deliver industry-leading trajectory planning solutions.
- Define and negotiate quarterly and annual technical roadmaps aligned with company-level autonomy milestones in coordinate with project managers and execute plans on schedule.
What we're looking for:
- Proven Engineering Leadership: 2+ years of experience managing high-performing development teams, with a demonstrable track record of inspiring, mentoring, and coaching engineers and driving measurable productivity gains.
- Ship-to-Production Mindset: Experience leading the delivery of production-quality algorithms in a high-stakes environment (Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics, or Aerospace). You know what it takes to move from a prototype to a commercially viable product.
- Strategic Vision: Ability to look beyond the immediate deliverables to define and defend a balanced technical roadmap that balances long-term architectural health with the urgent needs of a 2026 commercial launch.
- Technical Domain Expertise: Deep theoretical and practical expertise in numerical optimization and optimal control. You should be highly proficient in areas such as Model Predictive Control, nonlinear programming, and convex optimization applied to real-time trajectory generation.
- Advanced Motion Planning: Significant experience solving motion planning problems under uncertainty, including interaction-aware planning with dynamic agents and complex environmental constraints. Experience with Machine Learning based approaches is a significant plus.
- Full-Stack Robotics Context: Strong intuition for the entire robotics stack. You understand how upstream (Perception, Prediction) and downstream (Control, Actuation) systems impact trajectory feasibility and fleet safety.
- Production-Grade Software Development: Expertise in Modern C++ development within a Linux environment, with a focus on writing high-performance, real-time, and safety-critical code.
- Tooling Proficiency: Fluency in Python for rapid prototyping, data analysis, and visualization. Experience applying AI-augmented development workflows to large-scale Modern C++ codebases (e.g., agentic tools for multi-file refactoring, automated test generation, semantic code navigation, and code review acceleration) is strongly preferred. Experience with SQL or big-data frameworks for fleet-scale performance analysis is a significant plus.
- Influence & Clarity: Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to translate complex mathematical concepts into actionable plans for cross-functional stakeholders and executive leadership.
- Educational Foundation: Master’s or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical/Mechanical Engineering, or a related quantitative field.
We encourage a hybrid schedule with in-office time at one of our locations in Boston, Pittsburgh, or Las Vegas to support collaboration, or this role can be fully remote.
The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors including but not limited to specific skills, experience and expertise, role location, certifications, licenses, and business needs. The estimated compensation range listed in this job posting reflects base salary only. This role may include additional forms of compensation such as a bonus or company equity. The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process.
Candidates for certain positions are eligible to participate in Motional’s benefits program. Motional’s benefits include but are not limited to medical, dental, vision, 401k with a company match, health saving accounts, life insurance, pet insurance, and more.
Motional is a driverless technology company making autonomous vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. We’re driven by something more.
Our journey is always people first.
We aren't just developing driverless cars; we're creating safer roadways, more equitable transportation options, and making our communities better places to live, work, and connect. Our team is made up of engineers, researchers, innovators, dreamers and doers, who are creating a technology with the potential to transform the way we move.
Higher purpose, greater impact.
We’re creating first-of-its-kind technology that will transform transportation. To do so successfully, we must design for everyone in our cities and on our roads. We believe in building a great place to work through a progressive, global culture that is diverse, inclusive, and ensures people feel valued at every level of the organization. Diversity helps us to see the world differently; it’s not only good for our business, it’s the right thing to do.
Scale up, not starting up.
Our team is behind some of the industry's largest leaps forward, including the first fully-autonomous cross-country drive in the U.S, the launch of the world's first robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world's longest-standing public robotaxi fleet. We’re driven to scale; we’re moving towards commercialization of our technology, and we need team members who are ready to embrace change and challenges.
Formed as a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, Motional is fundamentally changing how people move through their lives. Headquartered in Boston, Motional has operations in the U.S and Asia. For more information, visit www.Motional.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
Motional AD Inc. is an EOE. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. To comply with Federal Law, we participate in E-Verify. All newly-hired employees are queried through this electronic system established by the DHS and the SSA to verify their identity and employment eligibility.
Ready to apply?
Apply to Motional
Principal Engineer Team Lead - Trajectory Planning Lead
Share this job
Mission Summary:
As a Technical Lead Manager at Motional, you'll lead a team responsible for the development and delivery of core trajectory planning algorithms via numerical optimization for autonomous vehicles. In this role, you will be at the forefront of shaping the motion planning and control systems that enable our fleet to navigate complex environments safely, efficiently, and comfortably. As a key leader, you will drive the development and continuous performance improvements of cutting-edge trajectory generation algorithms, collaborate with cross-functional teams (Planning, Perception, Prediction, Localization, ML Products, and Systems Engineering), and mentor a talented group of highly skilled engineers to deliver state-of-the-art solutions.
If you are passionate about autonomous driving and being part of our commercial launch this year, thrive on solving challenging real-world problems, and eager to make a significant impact in a rapidly evolving field, we want to hear from you!
What you'll do:
- Lead and scale a high-impact trajectory planning team, defining its technical vision, execution strategy, and long-term organizational role within the Motion organization.
- Drive commercial launch readiness for trajectory planning by delivering on-road driving behavior improvements (safety, comfort, and assertiveness) across the fleet through feature expansion, continuous performance improvements, and innovation through state-of-the art methods.
- Apply a rigorous, metrics-driven framework to quantify and improve on-road performance. Champion leveraging existing training and evaluation pipelines to ensure scalable, production-ready delivery.
- Manage the computational efficiency and real-time performance of trajectory generation algorithms, ensuring latency budget compliance.
- Lead the rapid triage and root-cause analysis (RCA) of critical fleet incidents, translating real-world edge cases into immediate algorithmic refinements and validation sets.
- Oversee the successful execution of complex, multi-team initiatives, ensuring technical alignment from design through deployment while maintaining a rigorous standard for testing and validation to meet the high safety bars required for our commercial launch.
- Coordinate with peer leads to provide technical leadership, making consequential decisions on architectural direction, strategic investments, tactical execution, and technical debt reduction.Ensure technical excellence through rigorous design and code reviews while actively facilitating the professional growth and mentorship of your engineering team. Set and drive ambitious goals that challenge the team to deliver industry-leading trajectory planning solutions.
- Define and negotiate quarterly and annual technical roadmaps aligned with company-level autonomy milestones in coordinate with project managers and execute plans on schedule.
What we're looking for:
- Proven Engineering Leadership: 2+ years of experience managing high-performing development teams, with a demonstrable track record of inspiring, mentoring, and coaching engineers and driving measurable productivity gains.
- Ship-to-Production Mindset: Experience leading the delivery of production-quality algorithms in a high-stakes environment (Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics, or Aerospace). You know what it takes to move from a prototype to a commercially viable product.
- Strategic Vision: Ability to look beyond the immediate deliverables to define and defend a balanced technical roadmap that balances long-term architectural health with the urgent needs of a 2026 commercial launch.
- Technical Domain Expertise: Deep theoretical and practical expertise in numerical optimization and optimal control. You should be highly proficient in areas such as Model Predictive Control, nonlinear programming, and convex optimization applied to real-time trajectory generation.
- Advanced Motion Planning: Significant experience solving motion planning problems under uncertainty, including interaction-aware planning with dynamic agents and complex environmental constraints. Experience with Machine Learning based approaches is a significant plus.
- Full-Stack Robotics Context: Strong intuition for the entire robotics stack. You understand how upstream (Perception, Prediction) and downstream (Control, Actuation) systems impact trajectory feasibility and fleet safety.
- Production-Grade Software Development: Expertise in Modern C++ development within a Linux environment, with a focus on writing high-performance, real-time, and safety-critical code.
- Tooling Proficiency: Fluency in Python for rapid prototyping, data analysis, and visualization. Experience applying AI-augmented development workflows to large-scale Modern C++ codebases (e.g., agentic tools for multi-file refactoring, automated test generation, semantic code navigation, and code review acceleration) is strongly preferred. Experience with SQL or big-data frameworks for fleet-scale performance analysis is a significant plus.
- Influence & Clarity: Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to translate complex mathematical concepts into actionable plans for cross-functional stakeholders and executive leadership.
- Educational Foundation: Master’s or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical/Mechanical Engineering, or a related quantitative field.
We encourage a hybrid schedule with in-office time at one of our locations in Boston, Pittsburgh, or Las Vegas to support collaboration, or this role can be fully remote.
The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors including but not limited to specific skills, experience and expertise, role location, certifications, licenses, and business needs. The estimated compensation range listed in this job posting reflects base salary only. This role may include additional forms of compensation such as a bonus or company equity. The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process.
Candidates for certain positions are eligible to participate in Motional’s benefits program. Motional’s benefits include but are not limited to medical, dental, vision, 401k with a company match, health saving accounts, life insurance, pet insurance, and more.
Motional is a driverless technology company making autonomous vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. We’re driven by something more.
Our journey is always people first.
We aren't just developing driverless cars; we're creating safer roadways, more equitable transportation options, and making our communities better places to live, work, and connect. Our team is made up of engineers, researchers, innovators, dreamers and doers, who are creating a technology with the potential to transform the way we move.
Higher purpose, greater impact.
We’re creating first-of-its-kind technology that will transform transportation. To do so successfully, we must design for everyone in our cities and on our roads. We believe in building a great place to work through a progressive, global culture that is diverse, inclusive, and ensures people feel valued at every level of the organization. Diversity helps us to see the world differently; it’s not only good for our business, it’s the right thing to do.
Scale up, not starting up.
Our team is behind some of the industry's largest leaps forward, including the first fully-autonomous cross-country drive in the U.S, the launch of the world's first robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world's longest-standing public robotaxi fleet. We’re driven to scale; we’re moving towards commercialization of our technology, and we need team members who are ready to embrace change and challenges.
Formed as a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, Motional is fundamentally changing how people move through their lives. Headquartered in Boston, Motional has operations in the U.S and Asia. For more information, visit www.Motional.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
Motional AD Inc. is an EOE. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. To comply with Federal Law, we participate in E-Verify. All newly-hired employees are queried through this electronic system established by the DHS and the SSA to verify their identity and employment eligibility.
Ready to apply?
Apply to Motional
Mission Summary:
The Staff Systems Safety Engineer:
- Oversees the development and implementation of engineering safety processes for our autonomous vehicle systems
- Is responsible for reviewing hazards, risk assessments, and ensuring compliance with industry safety standards (ISO 26262, SOTIF, and ASIL).
- Collaborates with cross-functional teams, including software, hardware, and AI engineers, to ensure integration of safety into the design and validation of our AV system
Essential Duties:
- Ensure and oversee the development and implementation of system safety processes for autonomous vehicle platforms.
- Ensure hazard analysis and risk assessments (HARA) for AV components and subsystems are conducted.
- Assist in the definition and verification of functional safety requirements in compliance with ISO 26262 and SOTIF (ISO 21448).
- Collaborate with hardware, software, and AI teams to integrate safety measures into perception, decision-making, and control systems.
- Support the development of failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) and fault tree analysis (FTA) for AV systems.
- Ensure compliance with regulatory and industry safety standards, including SAE J3016, NHTSA, and UNECE WP.29.
- Ensure the development and execution of safety verification and validation plans, including simulation, testing, and real-world driving scenarios.
- Work with certification bodies and regulators to ensure safety case documentation and approval processes.
- Contribute to the development of safety culture within the organization by providing guidance and training
Qualifications:
Educational Requirements
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field
Technical / Specialized Knowledge, Skills, Abilities:
- 5+ years industry and 3+ years of experience in safety engineering for automotive, aerospace, or robotics systems.
- Strong knowledge of functional safety standards (ISO 26262, SOTIF, ASIL).
- Knowledge of systems / software engineering standards (INCOSE, ISO15288, ASPICE CMMI)
- Experience with hazard analysis, risk assessment, and safety case development.
- Proficiency in safety analysis tools (e.g., Medini Analyze, Ansys, Fault Tree+, FMEA software).
- Familiarity with autonomous vehicle architectures, including perception, planning, and control systems.
- Experience working with real-time embedded systems and software safety.
- Strong problem-solving, analytical, and communication skills.
- Experience with machine learning safety challenges in AVs.
- Knowledge of cybersecurity principles related to vehicle safety (ISO/SAE 21434).
- Experience in safety assurance for AI-driven systems.
- Previous work with automotive OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, or AV startups
Physical Demands:
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to sit, talk, or hear. The employee is occasionally required to stand and at times for long periods; walk; use hands to finger, handle, or feel; reach with hands and arms. The employee must occasionally lift and move up to 50 pounds.
Working Environment:
The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those a team member encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
While performing the duties of this job, the team member is regularly exposed to the office environment, outside weather conditions, road conditions, and pedestrian traffic. The team member is regularly exposed to mechanical and computer parts. The team member is occasionally exposed to fumes and airborne particles. The noise level in the environment is low to moderate. When traveling, the team member will be exposed to airports, airplanes, hotels and public transportation environments.
This role is based in our Pittsburgh or Las Vegas office and requires in-office days each week.
The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors including but not limited to specific skills, experience and expertise, role location, certifications, licenses, and business needs. The estimated compensation range listed in this job posting reflects base salary only. This role may include additional forms of compensation such as a bonus or company equity. The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process.
Candidates for certain positions are eligible to participate in Motional’s benefits program. Motional’s benefits include but are not limited to medical, dental, vision, 401k with a company match, health saving accounts, life insurance, pet insurance, and more.
Motional is a driverless technology company making autonomous vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. We’re driven by something more.
Our journey is always people first.
We aren't just developing driverless cars; we're creating safer roadways, more equitable transportation options, and making our communities better places to live, work, and connect. Our team is made up of engineers, researchers, innovators, dreamers and doers, who are creating a technology with the potential to transform the way we move.
Higher purpose, greater impact.
We’re creating first-of-its-kind technology that will transform transportation. To do so successfully, we must design for everyone in our cities and on our roads. We believe in building a great place to work through a progressive, global culture that is diverse, inclusive, and ensures people feel valued at every level of the organization. Diversity helps us to see the world differently; it’s not only good for our business, it’s the right thing to do.
Scale up, not starting up.
Our team is behind some of the industry's largest leaps forward, including the first fully-autonomous cross-country drive in the U.S, the launch of the world's first robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world's longest-standing public robotaxi fleet. We’re driven to scale; we’re moving towards commercialization of our technology, and we need team members who are ready to embrace change and challenges.
Formed as a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, Motional is fundamentally changing how people move through their lives. Headquartered in Boston, Motional has operations in the U.S and Asia. For more information, visit www.Motional.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
Motional AD Inc. is an EOE. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. To comply with Federal Law, we participate in E-Verify. All newly-hired employees are queried through this electronic system established by the DHS and the SSA to verify their identity and employment eligibility.
Ready to apply?
Apply to Motional