Senior Software Engineer - Planning

Role Summary:

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to design and implement navigation planning algorithms for unmanned ground vehicles operating in complex off-road and on-road terrain using local sensing. These systems must perform at speed in punishing conditions. You will need to balance fidelity and optimality against computational cost and robustness, and decide when to trust prior information and when to trust what the vehicle sees.

The ideal candidate has hands-on experience with both classical and learned approaches to planning under uncertainty and knows how to combine them. They also understand both the value and the failure modes of prior maps and far-field data.

What You'll Do

• Design and implement planning algorithms for autonomous ground vehicles in unstructured off-road and structured on-road environments.
• Bridge learned and classical methods: decide where learned components (costing, prediction, policy) add value, and where classical guarantees and interpretability must win.
• Develop principled approaches to seeding planners with far-field and prior data (maps, overhead imagery, prior traversals), and reconciling that data with local sensing when they disagree.
• Design for GPS-denied, degraded, intermittent, and limited (DDIL) operation.
• Use our large corpus of off-road driving data for regression and progression testing, so improvements are measured and not anecdotal.
• Work closely with Perception, Controls, and Trajectory Optimization in a shared codebase. Integrate and adapt planners across vehicle platforms and sensor suites.
• Take part in field tests, demonstrations, and evaluation events, and own your work through deployment.

Minimum Qualifications

• BS or MS in CS, Robotics, Engineering, or a related field.
• 7+ years of relevant experience.
• Experience developing planning algorithms for mobile robots in changing or uncertain environments.
• Production-quality software in C++ and/or Python.
• Willingness to support periodic field testing.

Desired Experience & Qualifications

• PhD in a relevant field.
• Experience with both learned (e.g., learned costmaps, imitation/RL) and classical (search, sampling, optimization) planning.
• Experience integrating prior or opportunistic map data with onboard perception.
• Off-road UGV and/or on-road AV planning experience. UGV experience is a plus, not a requirement.
• Experience in DDIL environments.

Location:

The location for this position will be onsite in either Seattle, WA or Bay Area, CA.

Compensation And Benefits

Pay range:

Software Engineer: $160,000 - $190,000 annually

Senior Software Engineer: $200,000 - $230,000 annually

Actual level and base salary will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: job-related knowledge and skills, education, and experience.

Overland AI believes in creating a work environment that you look forward to embracing every day.

Benefits include:

• Equity Compensation
• Best-in-class healthcare, dental, and vision plans
• Flexible PTO
• 401(k) with company match
• Paid parental leave
• Monthly wellness stipend
• One-time workplace & productivity reimbursement

Overland AI is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, marital status, disability, genetic information, protected veteran or military status, or any other status protected by applicable law.

This position may involve access to export-controlled technology. Employment is contingent on the ability to comply with U.S. export control laws.

Overland AI provides reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans during the application process. Please contact [email protected] to request an accommodation.