Staff, Software Engineer - Motion Planning (Unstructured Environments)

Title: Staff, Software Engineer - Motion Planning (Unstructured Environments) Location: Blacksburg, VA, Remote - US

About The Company: 

At Torc, we have always believed that autonomous vehicle technology will transform how we travel, move freight, and do business. A leader in autonomous driving since 2007, Torc has spent over a decade commercializing our solutions with experienced partners. Now a part of the Daimler family, we are focused solely on developing software for automated trucks to transform how the world moves freight. Join us and catapult your career with the company that helped pioneer autonomous technology, and the first AV software company with the vision to partner directly with a truck manufacturer.

Meet The Team: 

Torc is hiring a Staff Motion Planning Engineer to lead technical development for the planning, prediction, and decision-making systems that determine how our autonomous trucks navigate the world safely, efficiently, and predictably. Our team operates at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, optimization, simulation, and safety, building the core autonomy capabilities that translate perception into action.

What You'll Do: 

This role is focused on motion planning, trajectory generation, and trajectory optimization for autonomous vehicles in unstructured environments. You will provide technical leadership across teams and platforms, driving architectural strategy, engineering excellence, and scalable system design.  You will lead high-impact technical initiatives, influence long-term engineering direction, and contribute directly to the design, development, validation, and deployment of planning capabilities.  

This role operates at a multi-team level with broad organizational impact. You will work closely with engineers and leaders across autonomy, controls, simulation, safety, and validation to help deliver safe, robust, and reliable autonomy behaviors at scale.  

• Technical Leadership
  • Defining and maintaining the architectural vision across teams, platforms, and services to ensure scalability, reliability, maintainability, long-term technical alignment, and consistency of software design patterns
  • Supporting Engineering Managers and Senior ICs in resolving complex technical design, architecture, and implementation challenges across multiple domains while balancing feasibility against business objectives
  • Establishing and promoting engineering best practices for code quality, automated testing, performance optimization, monitoring, security, and operational excellence
  • Conducting architecture reviews, technical deep dives, design sessions, and technical assessments to guide engineering decisions and solution direction
  • Mentoring and coaching senior and mid-level engineers while helping grow future Staff and Principal engineers through technical guidance and leadership development
  • Fostering a culture of engineering excellence, documentation, collaboration, innovation, and knowledge sharing across the organization
  • Translating complex technical concepts, trade-offs, and architectural decisions into clear recommendations for leadership and cross-functional stakeholders
  • Leading major technical initiatives such as platform modernization, observability enhancements, performance optimization, scalability improvements, and reliability engineering efforts

• Software Development
  • Design, develop, and optimize motion planning algorithms including trajectory generation, trajectory selection, behavior planning, and optimization-based planning approaches for autonomous trucks.
  • Develop planning solutions leveraging techniques such as graph search, sampling-based planning, optimization-based planning, spline/B-spline trajectories, convex optimization, and Frenet-frame approaches.
  • Incorporate vehicle kinematic and dynamic constraints into planning systems to ensure safe, feasible, and comfortable vehicle behavior.
  • Develop production-quality software using modern C++ within a Linux environment while adhering to quality, safety, testing, and deployment best practices.
  • Collaborate closely with Safety, Controls, Perception, Validation, and Simulation teams to develop safe and reliable autonomous driving behaviors.

• Testing, Integration, and Metrics
  • Develop and execute validation strategies across Software-in-the-Loop (SiL), Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL), and Vehicle-in-the-Loop (ViL) environments.
  • Investigate and debug vehicle behavior by reproducing issues in simulation, analyzing system performance, and implementing software improvements.
  • Support vehicle integration, deployment activities, and post-deployment investigations to ensure reliable autonomy performance.
  • Perform on-vehicle troubleshooting using real-time diagnostic tools and in-depth log analysis.

We are seeking a Software Engineer who is passionate about solving challenging autonomy problems and building production-quality software for real-world autonomous systems.

What You'll Need to Succeed: 

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related technical field with: 10+ years of industry experience OR Master's degree with 7+ years of experience OR PhD with 5+ years of experience.
• Proven experience operating as a Staff, Principal, or multi-team technical leader within complex engineering organizations including experience leading large cross-functional technical initiatives across multiple engineering teams
• Deep expertise developing robotics, autonomous vehicle, ADAS, or other complex real-time software systems.
• Deep expertise in modern C++ development within Linux-based environments.
• Diverse experience developing motion planning, trajectory generation, trajectory optimization, behavior planning, or decision-making systems for robotics or autonomous systems.
• Strong understanding of vehicle dynamics, vehicle kinematics, trajectory feasibility, and planning system architecture.
• Strong foundation in linear algebra, numerical optimization, geometry, and robotics algorithms.
• Hands-on experience with analyzing metrics to optimize performance in a resource-constrained environment.
• Excellent troubleshooting skills with the ability to perform both real-time diagnostics and in-depth post-analysis.
• Mastery of software engineering fundamentals, system design principles, and scalable development practices.
• Experience with version control (Git), build systems, and package management.
• Understanding of test automation principles and proficiency with unit testing and test automation frameworks (pytest, Robot Framework, gtest, etc.)
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to debug complex system-level issues.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills within cross-functional engineering teams.
• Ability to work independently while contributing effectively within a highly collaborative environment.

Bonus Points!

• Experience with Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI), Model Predictive Control (MPC), convex optimization, quadratic programming (QP), nonlinear optimization, or other optimization-based planning techniques for autonomous vehicles.
• Experience applying machine learning techniques such as imitation learning, reinforcement learning, or hybrid planning architectures.
• Experience integrating machine learning models into real-time or production systems.
• Experience working with simulation platforms and large-scale autonomy validation environments.
• Experience with robotics frameworks such as ROS/ROS2, Autoware, Apollo, or similar autonomy platforms.
• Exposure to CUDA, GPU acceleration, TensorRT, or high-performance compute environments.
• Experience supporting on-vehicle testing, debugging, and deployment activities.
• Passion for autonomous vehicles, robotics, and solving complex real-world engineering challenges.
• Contributions to open-source projects related to embedded Linux, robotics, or deployment automation.

Work Location: For this position, we are open to hiring in our Blacksburg, VA office work location in a hybrid capacity.  We are also open to hiring Remote in the United States & Canada with semi-monthly travel to Blacksburg, VA.  Some travel to Europe may be required.

U.S. Citizenship Requirement: 

This position requires access to information and systems that are restricted under U.S. law. Accordingly, only U.S. citizens are eligible for this role. This requirement is based on applicable government regulations and is not related to immigration status discrimination.

Perks of Being a Full-time Torc’r

Torc cares about our team members and we strive to provide benefits and resources to support their health, work/life balance, and future. Our culture is collaborative, energetic, and team focused. Torc offers:  

• A competitive compensation package that includes a bonus component and stock options
• 100% paid medical, dental, and vision premiums for full-time employees
• 401K plan with a 6% employer match
• Flexibility in schedule and generous paid vacation (available immediately after start date)
• Company-wide holiday office closures
• AD+D and Life Insurance

At Torc, we’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. We celebrate the uniqueness of our Torc’rs and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, veteran status, or disabilities. 

Even if you don’t meet 100% of the qualifications listed for this opportunity, we encourage you to apply. 

Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several geographic markets. Pay is based on a number of factors and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Torc's total compensation package will also include our corporate bonus and stock option plan. Dependent on the position offered, sign-on payments, relocation, and other forms of compensation may be provided as part of a total compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits.

Job ID: R-102807