Principal Machine Learning Integration Engineer

Overview

We are seeking a passionate and experienced engineer to help bring machine learning–based motion planning to the car. In this role, you will focus on deploying, optimizing, and maintaining ML-driven planning and control algorithms for real-time autonomous driving. You will collaborate across motion planning, controls, and software engineering teams to ensure models run reliably in production, under strict performance and safety constraints.

If you are excited by the challenge of bridging advanced ML with safety-critical, resource-constrained vehicle platforms—and want to shape the future of autonomy—we encourage you to apply.

• Deploy ML-based motion planning and control models onto vehicle platforms, ensuring performance under resource constraints.
• Optimize models for inference speed, latency, and memory footprint without sacrificing accuracy or safety.
• Collaborate with motion planning, controls, and perception teams to integrate ML components into the end-to-end autonomous driving stack.
• Build scalable deployment infrastructure including evaluation pipelines, model packaging, benchmarking, and automated validation.
• Validate model performance in both simulation and on-road testing, analyzing results and driving iterative improvements.
• Maintain production-quality code in C++ and Python.

• BS/MS/PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 4+ years of professional experience deploying ML systems in real-world robotics, embedded, or autonomous platforms.
• Strong software engineering skills in C++ and Python, with knowledge of modern development practices (code reviews, testing, CI/CD).
• Hands-on experience with ML frameworks (PyTorch, Tensor Flow) and model optimization for deployment.
• Familiarity with GPU acceleration, or inference optimization (e.g., Tensor
  
  RT, CUDA).
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to debug complex systems under production constraints.

• Experience with autonomous vehicle motion planning, control algorithms (MPC, LQR, PID), or reinforcement learning–based methods.
• Publications in relevant ML or robotics conferences (ICRA, NeurIPS, CoRL, RSS, etc.).
• Experience with ROS, AUTOSAR, or other real-time robotics frameworks.
• Knowledge of numerical optimization and its applications in trajectory generation.

• Shape the real-world deployment of cutting-edge ML technology on autonomous vehicles.
• Work with world-class ML researchers, software engineers, and controls experts in a highly collaborative environment.
• Contribute to a mission-driven company building safe, accessible, and transformative mobility solutions.

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors including but not limited to specific skills, experience and expertise, role location, certifications, licenses, and business needs. The estimated compensation range listed in this job posting reflects base salary only. This role may include additional forms of compensation such as a bonus or company equity.

The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process.

Candidates for certain positions are eligible to participate in Motional’s benefits program. Motional’s benefits include but are not limited to medical, dental, vision, 401k with a company match, health saving accounts, life insurance, pet insurance, and more.

Salary Range $168,000 — $283,900 USD

Motional is a driverless technology company making autonomous vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. We’re driven by something more.

Our journey is always people first.

We aren’t just developing driverless cars; we’re creating safer roadways, more equitable transportation options, and making our communities better places to live, work, and connect. Our team is made up of engineers, researchers, innovators, dreamers and doers, who are creating a technology with the potential to transform the way we move.

Higher purpose, greater impact.

We’re creating first-of-its-kind technology that will transform transportation.…