Senior Robotics Engineer

Motional is a leading autonomous driving company on a mission to make driverless vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. Backed by Hyundai Motor Group, Motional is at the forefront of the physical AI revolution. Motional isn’t just building first-of-its-kind technology; we are transforming transportation to create safer streets and more sustainable mobility options.

The Systems Readiness and Performance team is the crucial bridge between software development and real-world deployment. We are responsible for driving system design, for verifying and validating the autonomy stack, and for defining, measuring, and validating system performance targets. We work closely with stakeholders in autonomy, infrastructure, and operations to build the definitive safety case for the commercial launch of our fully driverless IONIQ 5 robotaxis in Las Vegas later this year.

We are seeking a highly skilled and autonomous Senior Robotics Engineer to play a critical role in investigating and diagnosing complex autonomous vehicle (AV) behaviors across on-road, resimulation, and synthetic simulation environments. This engineer will be responsible for taking end-to-end ownership of ambiguous problem spaces, utilizing Python, custom Spaceship tooling, and data visualization platforms to effectively perform root-cause analysis on emergent behaviors across our autonomy stack.

Their work will directly contribute to accelerating the development of safe and reliable autonomous technologies by transforming deep technical debugging into clear summaries that support unified release narratives and executive insights.

What You'll Be Doing System Diagnosis & Root Cause Analysis:
Perform deep technical investigations of undesirable AV behaviors across simulation, HIL, and on-road operations. Take end-to-end ownership of complex investigations, driving solutions autonomously from initial triage to final resolution with little to no oversight.

Cross-Subsystem Debugging:
Debug behaviors across perception, prediction, localization, planning, controls, and vehicle systems. Reason across subsystem boundaries to diagnose emergent behaviors resulting from component interactions.

Data Analysis & Tooling:
Analyze large datasets from system logs, telemetry, and software outputs using Python. Develop automated diagnostic workflows and custom internal tooling using Python and Spaceship to increase the speed and scale of investigations.

Performance Visualization:
Design and build interactive dashboards using Python frameworks and Business Intelligence tools (e.g., Looker) to effectively measure, analyze, and report on the performance of our AV systems.

Hypothesis Generation:
Develop technical hypotheses from incomplete or ambiguous evidence, distinguish behavioral symptoms from underlying root causes, and design analyses to systematically test potential causes.

Problem Space Identification:
Autonomously identify recurring undesirable behaviors, regressions, and emerging system-level performance issues, categorizing them into meaningful failure modes.

Technical Storytelling & Synthesis: "Dive deep" into technical complexities to uncover root causes, then step back to synthesize findings. Translate raw performance metrics into clear summaries that support executive-level reporting, unified release narratives, and cross-functional communication.

What We're Looking For

Education:

Bachelor's degree in Engineering (Computer Science, Electrical, Systems, Robotics) or equivalent work experience, with a Master's degree considered a strong plus.

Robotics

Experience:

5+ years of professional software or systems engineering experience working on safety-critical, complex systems such as Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics, Medical Devices, or Aerospace.…