Senior Autonomy Engineer

San Francisco Bay Area, United Statesfull timeOn Site

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senior

$190k–$230k

H1B: yes

Kodiak Senior Autonomy Engineer at Kodiak responsible for ensuring safety in autonomous driving through deep technical expertise and first-principles analysis. Own critical elements of the safety strategy including hazard analysis, risk assessments, and structured testing campaigns.

Responsibilities

Write C++ to efficiently search high-dimensional failure spaces at scale
Use first-principles analysis to develop requirements for safe perception, localization, prediction, motion planning, and control, collaborating directly with the Autonomy Software teams building those systems
Identify failure modes and edge cases that expose weaknesses in our system before they appear in on-road environments.
Perform hazard analysis, risk assessments, and fault tree analysis that feed directly into our safety case and drive system design decisions
Provide analysis to support complex autonomy system design trade-offs that affect safety and performance
Lead and support structured testing campaigns like simulation, track, on-road, and hardware-in-the-loop to validate that our safety claims hold
Pioneer new methods when existing ones aren't enough to hit our safety targets
Drive safety thinking cross-functionally — this team doesn't sit in a corner; it shapes how everyone builds
What you’ll bring:
M.S. or Ph.D. in engineering, mathematics, statistics, or a related technical field
Deep understanding of kinematics, dynamics, and system modeling
Strong foundation in probability and statistics

Qualification

Deep understanding of kinematicsHands-on work in motion planning

Required

M.S. or Ph.D. in engineering, mathematics, statistics, or a related technical field
Deep understanding of kinematics, dynamics, and system modeling
Strong foundation in probability and statistics
Strong programming skills in C++ and/or Python
Hands-on work in sensor fusion and object tracking
Hands-on work in machine learning methods
Hands-on work in classical computer vision
Hands-on work in motion planning