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Remote Motion Planning Engineer jobs

5 open positions in the United States, newest first.

Motion planning engineers write the software that decides how a robot or autonomous vehicle moves from where it is to where it needs to be without collisions and within its physical limits. They are responsible for the algorithms that generate paths and trajectories, sitting between perception, which describes the world, and control, which executes the motion.

About the Motion Planning Engineer role

What the work looks like

  • Implement and tune planners such as A*, RRT variants, lattice planners or trajectory optimization in C++.
  • Model kinematic and dynamic constraints so planned trajectories are feasible for the actual arm, vehicle or drone.
  • Test changes against large scenario suites in simulation and analyze failures before anything runs on hardware.
  • Debug behavior from logs of real robots, separating planning faults from perception, prediction or control problems.
  • Profile and optimize planning code so that it meets real-time cycle deadlines on embedded compute.

What employers ask for

  • Modern C++ and Python
  • Search, sampling and optimization-based planning
  • Kinematics, dynamics and control theory
  • ROS or ROS 2 and simulation tools
  • Numerical optimization and linear algebra
  • Master's or PhD in robotics often expected

Doing this job remotely

Algorithm development and simulation can be done from a home workstation, and some robotics employers hire planners remotely on that basis. Validation on physical robots or test vehicles cannot, so many roles are hybrid or expect periodic trips to a lab or test site. Remote engineers depend heavily on good logging, replay tools and colleagues who run hardware tests.

Where it comes from and where it leads

Most hold graduate degrees in robotics, computer science, mechanical or aerospace engineering, or come from controls and autonomy software roles. They progress to senior and staff planning engineer, technical lead for an autonomy stack or engineering management.