Senior Planning Engineer; Autonomy

At Aero Vect, we provide autonomous driving solutions to some of the busiest airports and logistics hubs in the world. Backed by top‑tier investors, Aero Vect is shaping the future of structured autonomy, beginning with self‑driving tow tractors.

If you have a passion for applying autonomous driving technologies to impact the flow of goods for millions of people, we want to talk to you!

We are looking for a Senior Planning Engineer who knows how to bring world‑class planner system design to autonomous driving systems in structured, low‑speed environments.

In this role, you’ll own, revise, and scale a core planning module at a fast‑paced, early‑stage startup. Leveraging your experience building production‑grade planners, you’ll propel the Aero Vect Drive to handle various driving scenarios, achieving category‑defining vehicle autonomy for the airport operational design domain.

Your scope will include leading the system design and implementation of key improvements to the current Aero Vect planner, including the global mission planner, behavior planner, and motion planner.

The generalist engineer will be part of the core autonomy team responsible for system requirements and validation of autonomous driving capabilities across various areas of the autonomy stack. Key responsibilities include designing, implementing, testing, and documenting robotics systems and features in C/C++ on desktop and embedded platforms.

The opportunity offers a technical, hands‑on team leader the chance to help develop a market‑defining enterprise product that combines autonomous vehicle technology with a robotics‑as‑a‑service (RaaS) business model. This role reports directly to our co‑founders and works closely with the autonomy engineering team.

What You’ll Do

Define, implement, and own hands‑on improvements to upgrade the core planner module, targeting milestones, growing the team, and working with internal/external partners — expect to spend 80% of your time performing hands‑on development, with the remaining 20% leading the planning module roadmap, including directing schedule, removing obstacles, and coaching the team to hit aggressive milestones.

Lead a team of engineers bringing up all components necessary for reliable autonomous driving in the airside environment, including vehicle corridors and the apron.

Design, implement, test, and support all aspects of ground vehicle autonomy, including planning, prediction, perception, localization, controls, and infrastructure subsystems.

Qualify all subsystems using objective measures, with an eye to functional safety and systems engineering best practices.

Collaborate with vehicle engineering to create an integrated system, including sensor/compute selection and integration.

Understand and keep up‑to‑date with state of the art.

Minimum Qualifications

Prior background (academic or industrial) in development of planning modules for autonomous systems.

Strong theoretical knowledge of one or more areas of planning: trajectory generation, behavior planning.

Bachelor’s Degree or Master’s Degree candidate in Computer Science, Math, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Physics, or related field.

Strong C++ (preferred) or Python programming and algorithmic problem solving skills.

Working experience in a Linux based Operating System.

Experience using the Robot Operating System (ROS) framework and tools like Rviz, rqt, tf, etc.

Strong reasoning skills and mathematics background including linear algebra, geometry, calculus, optimization, and probability to name a few.

Solid engineering background with hands‑on design and development experience.

Experience with field testing autonomous systems.

Highly collaborative nature and exceptional communicator.

Desired Qualifications

MS or PhD in Computer Science, Math, Robotics or a related field.

In‑Depth understanding of DDS frameworks like ROS/ROS2 or other networking middleware.

Proven track record of system development and successful deployment of unmanned systems in existing or upcoming products.

Mastery of Modern C++ (14 and beyond) and safety critical coding practices (MISRA and ISO 26262 compliance).

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