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Zoox

Software Engineer - Mission Planning

Foster City, CA
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

From the team and dates on Zoox's own job board.

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