About the job
As a Principal Engineer and Technical Lead at Motional, you will spearhead a dynamic team dedicated to creating and implementing advanced trajectory planning algorithms through numerical optimization for autonomous vehicles. You will play a pivotal role in designing the motion planning and control systems that empower our fleet to navigate through intricate environments with safety, efficiency, and comfort. As a vital leader, you will not only enhance the development and performance of innovative trajectory generation algorithms but also collaborate with multidisciplinary teams including Planning, Perception, Prediction, Localization, Machine Learning Products, and Systems Engineering. Additionally, you will mentor a skilled group of engineers to deliver cutting-edge solutions.
If you are enthusiastic about autonomous driving and wish to contribute to our commercial launch this year, enjoy tackling challenging real-world problems, and are eager to make a profound impact in a rapidly evolving domain, we invite you to connect with us!
Your Responsibilities:
- Lead and expand a high-impact trajectory planning team, defining its technical vision, execution strategy, and long-term organizational role within the Motion organization.
- Prepare for commercial launch readiness by enhancing on-road driving behavior (safety, comfort, assertiveness) across the fleet through feature expansion, continuous performance improvements, and innovative methodologies.
- Utilize a systematic, metrics-driven approach to measure and enhance on-road performance. Advocate for the use of existing training and evaluation pipelines to ensure scalable, production-ready delivery.
- Oversee the computational efficiency and real-time performance of trajectory generation algorithms, ensuring compliance with latency budgets.
- Direct the swift triage and root-cause analysis of critical fleet incidents, translating real-world edge cases into immediate algorithmic enhancements and validation sets.
- Manage the successful execution of complex, multi-team projects, ensuring technical alignment from design to deployment while upholding a rigorous standard for testing and validation to meet the high safety benchmarks required for our commercial launch.
- Collaborate with peer leads to provide technical leadership, making crucial decisions regarding architectural direction, strategic investments, tactical execution, and technical debt reduction. Ensure technical excellence through thorough design and code reviews, while actively fostering the professional growth and mentorship of your engineering team. Set and pursue ambitious goals that inspire the team to deliver industry-leading trajectory solutions.

