Plus.ai

Senior/Staff Software Engineer (Machine Learning Runtime), Motion Planning

Plus.ai$130K — $220K *
Transportation
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
  • 4+ years of experience in developing high-performance production software.
  • Strong C++ programming skills for large-scale software systems.
  • Experience optimizing real-time systems including latency and throughput.
  • Experience deploying machine learning inference in production environments.
  • Familiarity with inference acceleration frameworks like TensorRT or CUDA.
  • Strong debugging and analytical skills for complex software issues.
  • Experience designing automated testing and runtime monitoring.

Responsibilities

  • Design and optimize the ML-based autonomous vehicle planning pipeline.
  • Integrate machine learning models into a safety-critical software stack.
  • Optimize end-to-end performance through profiling and memory optimization.
  • Develop high-performance C++ components for multiple planning tasks.
  • Design runtime validation and safety mechanisms for trajectory generation.
  • Investigate runtime issues through thorough analysis and debugging.
  • Build tooling for enhanced debugging and monitoring of production systems.

Benefits

  • Opportunities for personal and professional development.
  • Catered free lunch with unlimited snacks and beverages.
  • Highly competitive salary and benefits package, including 401(k) plan.
Full Job Description
Responsibilities

  • Design, implement, and optimize the production runtime pipeline for ML-based autonomous vehicle planning.
  • Integrate machine learning models into a scalable, safety-critical planning software stack.
  • Optimize end-to-end inference performance through algorithm optimization, C++ implementation, profiling, memory optimization, and efficient execution on compute-constrained embedded platforms.
  • Develop high-performance C++ components for feature extraction, inference, post-processing, trajectory generation, and runtime orchestration.
  • Design runtime validation, safety guardrails, and fallback mechanisms to ensure generated trajectories are feasible, robust, and compliant with traffic rules.
  • Investigate complex runtime issues by tracing failures across the planning pipeline, from feature extraction through inference to trajectory generation.
  • Debug difficult edge-case scenarios using logs, profiling tools, visualization, offline replay, and quantitative analysis to identify root causes and implement robust solutions.
  • Build tooling and infrastructure to improve debugging, observability, performance analysis, testing, and runtime monitoring.
  • Collaborate closely with machine learning engineers to efficiently deploy new models into production while maintaining system reliability and performance.
  • Drive continuous improvements in runtime architecture, scalability, reliability, and maintainability.
  • Ensure technical work complies with the company's Quality Management System (QMS), customer requirements, regulatory standards, and internal engineering processes.


Requirements

  • BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
  • 4+ years of experience developing high-performance production software.
  • Strong C++ programming skills with experience building, optimizing, and maintaining large-scale software systems.
  • Experience optimizing real-time systems, including latency, throughput, memory usage, and multithreaded performance.
  • Experience deploying machine learning inference into production environments.
  • Familiarity with TensorRT, CUDA, ONNX Runtime, or similar inference acceleration frameworks.
  • Strong software engineering fundamentals, including software architecture, testing, and code quality.
  • Excellent debugging and analytical problem-solving skills, with the ability to systematically investigate complex software and system-level issues.
  • Experience tracing failures across multi-stage pipelines, identifying root causes, and implementing reliable long-term solutions.
  • Experience designing validation strategies, automated testing, runtime monitoring, and observability for production systems.
  • Strong ownership mindset with the ability to drive problems from investigation through implementation, validation, and deployment.
  • Excellent communication skills and experience collaborating across machine learning and systems engineering teams.


Preferred Skills

  • Experience with autonomous driving planning, prediction, or robotics software.
  • Experience profiling CPU and GPU performance using modern profiling tools.
  • Experience deploying software on embedded GPU platforms.
  • Familiarity with PyTorch and machine learning workflows.
  • Experience with distributed systems, CI/CD, and cloud infrastructure.

Bonus Qualifications
Candidates who stand out typically have one or more of the following:
  • Deep expertise in modern C++ (C++17/20) and high-performance software engineering.
  • Experience optimizing production inference pipelines for low latency and high throughput.
  • Experience developing internal debugging, visualization, profiling, or observability tools.
  • Proven ability to diagnose and resolve complex production issues involving machine learning, runtime software, and system integration.
  • Strong systems thinking with the ability to balance correctness, performance, maintainability, scalability, and safety.
  • Demonstrated technical leadership and experience mentoring engineers on large production software projects.


$130,000 - $220,000 a year

Your opportunities joining PlusAI

Work, learn and grow in a highly future-oriented, innovative and dynamic field.

Wide range of opportunities for personal and professional development.

Catered free lunch, unlimited snacks and beverages.

Highly competitive salary and benefits package, including 401(k) plan.

About Plus.ai

Land O'Lakes, Inc. is an American member-owned agricultural cooperative based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb of Arden Hills, Minnesota, United States, focusing on the dairy industry. The cooperative has 1,959 direct producer-members, 751 member-cooperatives, and about 9,000 employees who process and distribute products for about 300,000 agricultural producers, handling 12 billion pounds of milk annually. It is ranked third on the National Cooperative Bank Co-op 100 list of mutuals and cooperatives. The co-op is one of the largest producers of butter and cheese in the United States through its dairy foods business; serves producers, animal owners and their families through more than 4,700 local cooperatives, independent dealers and other large retailers through its Purina Animal Nutrition business; and delivers seed, crop protection products, agricultural services and agronomic insights to 1,300 locally owned and operated cooperative and independent agricultural retailers and their grower customers through its WinField United business.
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