Software Engineer, Zendar

• Ability to work from the office in Paris, at least Monday, Tuesday and Thursday
• 3+ years of software engineering experience, with production-quality coding skills in modern C++ and Python
• Hands-on experience in motion planning, decision making, or vehicle controls (e.g., optimization-based planning, search methods, optimal control, MPC, probabilistic decision making) on autonomous vehicles, ADAS, or robotic systems
• Solid foundation in linear algebra, geometry, statistics & probability, and vehicle dynamics
• Experience taking features from design through real-world deployment — not just prototypes
• Ability to break down complex, ambiguous problems into well-defined technical solutions
• Somebody with solid opinions based on experience, yet open-minded and flexible to find the best solution for the situation

Desirable

• The Vehicle Motion Planning & Control team is responsible for behavior and trajectory planning for our autonomous vehicle — deciding where the vehicle goes and how it gets there
• The team also owns vehicle control (longitudinal and lateral) and the on-vehicle integration that makes our vehicles drive safely, comfortably, and predictably in the real world
• The team's 6-month roadmap is to rapidly unlock new driving behaviors, like Navigate on Autopilot (NoA) on highways
• We are hiring a Software Engineer to join the team and you will own components from algorithm design through real-time C++ implementation, simulation, tuning, and on-vehicle validation
• Because the team is small and the surface area is large, this role is ideal for someone with strong software fundamentals, a solid grounding in robotics or controls, and genuine eagerness to see their code move a physical vehicle
• Design and Build the Motion Planning Stack
• Develop trajectory planning and decision-making algorithms that produce safe, smooth, dynamically feasible motion in dynamic, uncertain environments — including scenarios with noisy or incomplete perception input
• Reason about interactions with other road users and translate desired driving behavior into algorithmic changes across the planning stack
• Develop Vehicle Control Software
• Architect, implement, and validate control and estimation algorithms for the vehicle's longitudinal and lateral dynamics
• Write mission-critical, real-time C++ that runs on-vehicle and on embedded automotive compute
• Integrate with Perception and Platform
• Work closely with our Perception and Software Platform teams to define clean interfaces between perception output, planning, and control
• Support driving-function demos on our vehicles, from bring-up through customer-facing runs
• Test, Measure, and Improve
• Build simulation and analysis tooling in Python and C++ to evaluate planner and controller performance before code ever touches a vehicle
• Define metrics for driving quality and safety, extract insights from field data, and feed them back into development
• Contribute to failure and hazard analyses and implement safety mitigations in planning and control software