Senior Engineer, Motion Planning and Controls, Autonomous Driving

At Lucid, we are creating exceptional mobility experiences through innovation to drive the world forward. Built on Lucid’s proprietary technology and software-defined vehicle architecture, our award-winning vehicles bring our “Compromise Nothing™” approach to the global automotive market. We achieve this through deep vertical integration, with design, engineering, and production happening in-house across our global offices and manufacturing facilities. Our teams come from industries around the world, united by a shared commitment to excellence.

About the Role

We are seeking a Senior Motion Planning Engineer to support the auto-parking and low-speed autonomy stack. This role focuses on trajectory optimization, path smoothing, and local planning, with direct impact on parking features such as Auto Park, Summon, and Park-to-Park. The ideal candidate will combine strong algorithmic foundations with production-grade software execution, driving both system performance and scalability. This role is based in Southfield, MI and requires employees to be onsite five days a week.

Responsibilities

• Develop and enhance trajectory optimization algorithms (e.g., iLQR / MPC-based approaches) for low-speed scenarios
• Design and implement constraint-aware optimization, including collision avoidance and kinematic feasibility
• Improve local planners to generate control-friendly trajectories
• Refactor and scale planning stack architecture for maintainability and extensibility
• Optimize CPU usage and explore parallel/GPU acceleration opportunities
• Improve system-level behaviors such as stability under dynamic constraints and scalability across scenarios and vehicle platforms
• Investigate and resolve real-world issues such as curvature discontinuities, velocity/trajectory mismatches, and edge-case steering behavior
• Validate solutions using simulation and vehicle logs, multi-scenario testing, and benchmarking
• Evaluate and prototype new approaches (e.g., learned models, barrier functions, ML-based planning)
• Benchmark and compare planning algorithms for production viability
• Contribute to next-gen planning initiatives, including ML-driven planning
• Drive technical discussions and share algorithm insights across teams
• Maintain high-quality documentation and support knowledge transfer
• Track work via Jira with clear metrics and reproducible results

Requirements

• M.S. or Ph.D. in Robotics, Control, Electrical Engineering, or related field
• 2+ years of software development experience in autonomous driving, ADAS, or robotics, with a focus on large-scale data and real-time systems
• Strong programming skills in C/C++ with solid understanding of software engineering design principles and best practices
• Proven track record of delivering ADAS/AD features through the full production lifecycle: requirements analysis, architecture/design, implementation, unit testing, feature tuning, SIL/HIL validation, and in-vehicle deployment
• Hands-on experience with software integration on embedded platforms (e.g., NVIDIA Xavier/Orin, Infineon Aurix)
• Demonstrated ability to build reliable production-grade systems, including large-scale architectures, evaluation pipelines, and performance-optimized models

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with ML-based planning approaches
• GPU or parallel computing for planning
• Track record of production deployment in real vehicles

Benefits

• Comprehensive and competitive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Life and disability coverage
• Paid time off and paid holidays
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Eligible employees may participate in Lucid’s equity program and/or a discretionary annual cash incentive program