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.

Why this role is exciting

Please note this role is based in our Las Vegas office, if you aren't already located here we will financially support relocation. As a Principal Full-Stack Engineer, Ops Tools This is a rare opportunity to build mission-critical software that directly powers real-world operations. You’ll help scale Vay’s Las Vegas service by designing and shipping end-to-end operational tools used every day by people on the ground and behind the wheel, remotely.

This role is built for engineers who want high ownership, real users, and real consequences. You’ll sit at the intersection of mobility, real-time systems, and remote driving, helping shape one of the world’s first commercial remote operations platforms.

If you’re excited by ambiguity, value impact over abstraction, and want your software to move actual cars, not just pixels, this role is for you.

What you’ll be driving

• Own the solution space across our operational tooling, translating complex operational workflows into reliable, user-facing software across multiple verticals, including:
  • Customer Support
  • Remote Driving Operations
  • Fleet Management
• Work closely with Operations, Customer Support, Engineering, and Product to design and develop end-to-end integrated solutions, combining off-the-shelf tools, low-code platforms, and custom-built software where it makes sense.
• Build and maintain real-time, interactive operational dashboards, including charts, maps, and data-dense interfaces, over operational databases and the data warehouse
• Build fleet intelligence capabilities over real time telemetry to identify and self heal (where possible) anomalies in an EV fleet of teledrivable vehicles
• Level up the organization, by influencing cross team architecture across our operations platform, dispatch, and routing and navigation backends, as well as mentoring and coaching engineers
• Partner with Directors to define and execute on an engineering roadmap to level up the organization’s focus on engineering quality and delivery velocity, on topics ranging from setting up effecting engineering systems for testing to driving high performance engineering culture
• Own what you build, from first commit through production and iteration.

What we’re looking for

• Strong full-stack depth.

• Confident in modern frontend development using React and TypeScript.

• Hands-on experience building backend services and APIs.

• Solid understanding of:

  • RESTful API design

  • Authentication and authorization

  • Secure API integrations

• Strong fundamentals in relational databases, including data modeling, transactions, indexing, and querying.

• Proven experience working with design systems to build consistent, scalable interfaces.

• Ability to translate complex, high-stakes workflows into clear, efficient, and error-resistant user experiences.

• Comfortable working closely with non-engineering stakeholders (Ops, CS, Product).

• Thrives in environments with ambiguity and evolving requirements.

• Drives clarity through iteration, feedback, and pragmatic decision-making.

Nice to have

• Experience building data-intensive or real-time user interfaces (streaming updates, large tables, map-based views).

• Experience integrating third-party tools or platforms.

• Background in operational, logistics, or mobility-related systems.

Why you should join Vay

💪 A global team of smart, motivated people from 30+ countries who love tackling hard problems and turning bold ideas into reality.

🌍 Huge scope for impact in a fast paced environment

💰 ESOP stock options: A stake in Vay’s future – not just a salary.

🌴 Unlimited Paid Vacation Days

🎫 401(k) programme

🏥 Health, Dental & Vision Insurance 

🚗 All Vay team members receive 30% off their Vay rides

🏋️‍♂️ Wellness Hub free gym access & wellness app subscriptions

🛍️ Exclusive external discounts

💼 $350 Home office budget 

✈️ Relocation financial assistance when relocating to Las Vegas 

🎊 Regular team events throughout the year