Software Engineer - Mission Planning
- Salary
- USD 163,000 - 263,000 / per-year-salary
- Level
- Mid
- Work type
- Hybrid · Foster City
Not stated in the posting: visa.
Open. First seen 22 October 2026.
About the role
The Mission Planner team at Zoox is responsible for creating high-level routes for our autonomous vehicles to transport passengers to their destinations. You will work closely with our Cloud Services team to facilitate pick-up and drop-off requests, along with live traffic data among other inputs. You will also integrate closely with the decision-making and trajectory planning and controls teams to allow dynamic planning. This team will enable the core ability for our vehicles to choose the best routes through cities and adapt in real-time.
We are seeking an engineer who is passionate about tackling the complexities of mission planning in dynamic cities. You should be driven to contribute innovative solutions to architecture and design and take responsibility for significant software components. If you like to work close to the robot platform and enjoy experiencing your developed software in the robot, we would like to hear from you.
In this role, you will:
- Develop mission planner algorithms, including graph search and integration with behavioral planning
- Integrate and test your developed applications in the robot, learn and make improvements.
- Work collaboratively with passionate team members to support the integration of software components from all teams throughout Zoox.
- Set the short and long term technical direction for the team and collaborate on the broader company-wide directions
- Coordinate cross-functional initiatives with other teams across Mission Planning, Behavioral Planning and Cloud Services.
Qualifications
- BS/MS in Computer Science, Robotics, or a related field and 2+ years of industry experience
- Programming skills in C++
- Understanding and experience with a variety of graph search techniques (A*, D*, Dijkstra …)
- Model real-world problems using Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) or related frameworks
- Develop scalable solutions for sequential decision-making under uncertainty and constraints
- Demonstrated ability to write code for a shipped product (commercial robotics, drones, consumer devices, automotive)
Bonus Qualifications
- PhD in computer science or related field
- Experience with autonomous robots
About Zoox
Zoox is developing the first ground-up, fully autonomous vehicle fleet and the supporting ecosystem required to bring this technology to market. Sitting at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and design, Zoox aims to provide the next generation of mobility-as-a-service in urban environments. We’re looking for top talent that shares our passion and wants to be part of a fast-moving and highly execution-oriented team.
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Zoox's standard text
Accommodations
If you need an accommodation to participate in the application or interview process please reach out to accommodations@zoox.com or your assigned recruiter.
A Final Note:
You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Zoox, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.
What this role asks for
In most of Zoox's ads
Machine Learning
Named in most of its open postings, whatever the role.
84% of this description is written for the role. The rest is Zoox's standard text, folded away below.
Compared with Zoox's other open jobs.
The team: Autonomy Software HIRES STEADILY
This role is one of 36 open in Autonomy Software. 5 were posted in the last 30 days and the oldest in February: a team that hires all year rather than one being built.
WHAT THE TEAM WORKS WITH, ACROSS ITS POSTINGS
Machine Learning (32 of 36), C++ (22 of 36), Python (17 of 36), Computer Vision (12 of 36), Deep Learning (9 of 36), CUDA (6 of 36), LLM (5 of 36)
OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM
- Senior Technical Program Manager - Verification and Validation posted Oct 7
- Manager, Technical Product Management – Autonomy Integration posted Oct 2
- Software Engineer - Planner GPU Compute posted Sep 27
- Senior Software Engineer - Planner GPU Compute posted Sep 25
- Senior Manager, Perception Data posted Sep 23
- Data Scientist - Perception Verification and Validation posted Sep 9
- Software Engineer - Collision Avoidance System Metrics posted Sep 3
- Senior Staff / Principal Software Engineer - Freeway Autonomy posted Aug 31
- Senior Software Engineer - Mapping Web posted Aug 28
- Senior/Staff Technical Program Manager - Autonomy Behaviors posted Aug 24
- Senior Machine Learning Engineer - Perception 3D Segmentation posted Jul 17
- Senior Full-stack Engineer - Mapping Web Services posted Jul 7
- Senior/Staff Software Engineer - Machine Learning & System Optimization posted Jun 30
- Software Engineer - Mapping Data Software posted Jun 18
- Senior/Staff Software Engineer - Planner Frameworks Pipeline posted Jun 16
- Software Engineer - Planner Frameworks Pipeline posted May 12
- Software Engineer - Driving Behavior posted May 12
- Principal Software Engineer, Perception Architect posted Apr 20
- Senior Data Scientist - Verification & Validation posted Mar 27
- Manager, Technical Program Management - Artificial Intelligence posted Feb 20
- Software Engineering Manager - Perception Occupancy posted Feb 3
- Senior / Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Behavior Models for Road Users posted Dec 17
- Senior / Staff Software Engineer - Motion Planning posted Nov 5
- Senior Staff / Principal Machine Learning Engineer - Autonomy Behaviors posted Nov 4
- Senior/Staff Technical Program Manager - Artificial Intelligence posted Oct 21
- Senior Machine Learning Engineer - Perception posted May 20
- Software Engineer - Road Network Tools posted Mar 25
- Software Engineer - Behavior Capabilities posted Dec 2
- Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Perception posted Nov 12
- Software Engineer - Learned Trajectory Machine Learning Engineer posted Nov 7
- Senior / Staff Software Engineer - Learned Trajectory Machine Learning Engineer posted Nov 7
- Senior/Staff Software Engineer - Behavior Capabilities posted Jul 15
- Senior Staff Software Engineer - Perception & Sensing posted May 3
- Staff Data Scientist - Behavior Evaluation posted May 4
- Software Engineer - Motion Planning posted Feb 8
From the team and dates on Zoox's own job board.
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