About the job
Join Motional as a Principal Engineer Team Lead, where you will spearhead a talented team dedicated to crafting and implementing advanced trajectory planning algorithms through numerical optimization for autonomous vehicles. Your leadership will play a critical role in refining the motion planning and control systems that empower our fleet to navigate intricate environments with safety, efficiency, and comfort. As a pivotal figure in our organization, you will oversee the evolution and continual enhancement of state-of-the-art trajectory generation algorithms, engaging in collaborative efforts with diverse teams including Planning, Perception, Prediction, Localization, Machine Learning Products, and Systems Engineering. Additionally, you will mentor a skilled group of engineers, guiding them to deliver innovative and high-quality solutions.
If you are enthusiastic about the future of autonomous driving, eager to contribute to our commercial launch this year, and thrive on tackling complex real-world challenges, we invite you to apply!
Your Responsibilities:
- Lead and expand a high-impact trajectory planning team, establishing its technical vision, execution strategy, and long-term role within the Motion organization.
- Ensure readiness for commercial launch by enhancing on-road driving behaviors (safety, comfort, and assertiveness) across the fleet through feature expansion, ongoing performance improvement, and cutting-edge innovations.
- Implement a rigorous, metrics-driven framework to assess and enhance on-road performance, championing the use of existing training and evaluation pipelines for scalable, production-ready solutions.
- Oversee the computational efficiency and real-time performance of trajectory generation algorithms, ensuring adherence to latency budgets.
- Lead prompt triage and root-cause analysis of fleet incidents, translating real-world edge cases into immediate algorithmic updates and validation datasets.
- Manage the successful implementation of complex, multi-team projects, ensuring technical consistency from design through deployment while upholding high standards for testing and validation to meet safety benchmarks for our commercial launch.
- Collaborate with peer leads to provide technical direction, making impactful decisions on architectural pathways, strategic investment, tactical execution, and technical debt alleviation. Ensure technical excellence through thorough design and code reviews while fostering the professional development and mentorship of your engineering team. Set and pursue ambitious objectives that encourage the team to deliver industry-leading trajectory solutions.
