Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions-free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract.
As a company, we constantly challenge what’s possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown. Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations.
Role Summary
We are seeking a Senior Staff Motion Planning Engineer to architect and lead the execution of core autonomous capabilities. In this role, you will move away from isolated component development to own entire technical verticals—harmonizing algorithm design, closed-loop evaluation, and systems level thinking to deliver complete, production-grade driving behaviors.
Your work will sit at the intersection of classical robotics and data-driven intelligence, ensuring our vehicles operate with unparalleled safety and efficiency. If you are a seasoned engineer who thrives on solving high-dimensional problems, possesses a deep "data-first" mindset, and is ready to act as a technical pillar for the planning team, we want to hear from you.
Responsibilities
- Own End-to-End Technical Verticals: Lead the design, integration, and deployment of complete autonomous capabilities (e.g., complex urban intersection navigation, dense highway maneuvering) by tying together algorithmic logic, system constraints, and metric frameworks.
- Architect Holistic Evaluation Paradigms: Define and implement the overarching "eval" strategy for your technical verticals. Create sophisticated, multi-layered metrics that go beyond simple pass/fail to continuously quantify safety, comfort, and human-likeness across millions of simulation miles.
- Synthesize Data-Driven & Classical Approaches: Lead the transition from rigid, heuristic-based decision-making to scalable, data-informed frameworks. Utilize petabyte-scale fleet data to uncover systemic gaps and fundamentally evolve planning behavior.
- Cross-Functional Technical Orchestration: Serve as the primary technical authority aligning Product, Safety, Simulation, and Infrastructure teams to ensure your vertical capability can be seamlessly validated and deployed.
- Architectural Oversight: Navigate the tradeoffs between computational efficiency and plan quality, ensuring the motion planning stack remains performant in real-time environments.
- Foster Engineering Excellence: Promote a culture of clean, extendable C++ and Python code, ensuring the codebase is modular and collaborative.
Qualifications
- B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Robotics, Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
- 10+ years of experience in motion planning, behavioral planning, or decision-making for autonomous vehicles or complex robotic systems.
- Expertise in C++ and Python: Ability to write production-grade, real-time C++ code and leverage Python for rapid prototyping and large-scale data analysis.
- Data-Centric Mindset: Demonstrated experience using large datasets to inform algorithmic changes, rather than relying solely on manual "if-else" logic.
- Strong Leadership Potential: Experience or high potential in technical leadership (TL/TLM), with a track record of guiding complex projects and mentoring peers.
- Deep Knowledge of Robotics Fundamentals: Familiarity with optimization-based planning, state lattices, A*/D*, POMDPs, or similar motion planning frameworks.
- Analytical Rigor: Strong background in building scalable metrics and evaluation frameworks to quantify autonomous behavior.
- Communication Skills: Excellent ability to build consensus across teams and translate complex technical challenges into actionable roadmaps.
- Hands-on Approach: Proactively identifies bottlenecks in the planning stack and "rolls up sleeves" to implement fixes in both simulation and on-vehicle environments.
Pay Disclosure
The salary range for this role is $265,000.00 - $331,300.00 for California based applicants. This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, shift, and organizational needs.
The successful candidate may be eligible for annual performance bonus and equity awards.
We offer a comprehensive package of benefits for full-time and part-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26, including but not limited to paid vacation, paid sick leave, and a competitive portfolio of insurance benefits including life, medical, dental, vision, short-term disability insurance, and long-term disability insurance to eligible employees. You may also have the opportunity to participate in Rivian’s 401(k) Plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program if you meet certain eligibility requirements. Full-time employee coverage is effective on their first day of employment. Part-time employee coverage is effective the first of the month following 90 days of employment. More information about benefits is available at rivianbenefits.com.
You can apply for this role through careers.rivian.com (or through internal-careers-rivian.icims.com if you are a current employee). This job is not expected to be closed any sooner than June 30, 2026.
Equal Opportunity
Rivian is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Rivian is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at candidateaccommodations@rivian.com.
Candidate Data Privacy
Rivian may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes (“Candidate Personal Data”). This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information. Rivian may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) recordkeeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.
Rivian may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian affiliates; and (iii) Rivian’s service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services.
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Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.