Tech Specialist, Planning & Control, Dream Drive

About Lucid

At Lucid we are creating exceptional mobility experiences through innovation to drive the world forward. Built on Lucids proprietary technology and software-defined vehicle architecture our award-winning vehicles bring our Compromise Nothing approach to the global automotive market. That means refusing to choose between performance and sustainability design and engineering ambition and Lucid Air and Lucid Gravity we have designed and built vehicles that have redefined their segments combining exceptional range performance design and expansive space in a single experience.

We achieve this through deep vertical integration with design engineering and productionhappening in-houseacross our global offices the world united by a shared commitment to refusing to settle youcanhelpredefinewhatspossible andshape the future of mobility.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to support the auto-parking and low-speed autonomy stack. This role focuses on trajectory optimization path smoothing and local planning with direct impact on parking features such as Auto Park Summon and Park-to-Park. The ideal candidate will combine strong algorithmic foundations with production-grade software execution driving both system performance and scalability. This role is based in Newark CA. and requires employees to be onsite five days a week.

Key Responsibilities:

• Motion Planning & Trajectory Optimization
  • Develop and enhance trajectory optimization algorithms (e.g. iLQR / MPC-based approaches) for low-speed scenarios
  • Design and implement constraint-aware optimization including
  • Improve local planners to generate control-friendly trajectories
• System Architecture & Performance Optimization
  • Refactor and scale planning stack architecture for maintainability and extensibility
  • Optimize CPU usage and explore parallel/GPU acceleration opportunities
  • Improve system-level behaviors such as:
    • Stability under dynamic constraints
    • Scalability across scenarios and vehicle platforms
• Debugging Validation and Production Integration
  • Investigate and resolve real-world issues such as: Curvature discontinuities velocity/trajectory mismatches and edge-case steering behavior
  • Validate solutions using:
    • Simulation and vehicle logs
    • Multi-scenario testing and benchmarking
• Research Prototyping and Innovation
  • Evaluate and prototype new approaches (e.g. learned models barrier functions ML-based planning)
  • Benchmark and compare planning algorithms for production viability
  • Contribute to next-gen planning initiatives including ML-driven planning
• Cross-Team Collaboration & Knowledge Transfer
  • Drive technical discussions and share algorithm insights across teams
  • Maintain high-quality documentation and support knowledge transfer
  • Track work via Jira with clear metrics and reproducible results

Required Qualifications:

• M.S. or Ph.D. in Robotics Control Electrical Engineering or related field
• 5-8 years of software development experience in autonomous driving ADAS or robotics with a focus on large-scale data and real-time systems
• Strong programming skills in C/C with solid understanding of software engineering design principles and best practices
• Proven track record of delivering ADAS/AD features through the full production lifecycle: requirements analysis architecture/design implementation unit testing feature tuning SIL/HIL validation and in-vehicle deployment
• Hands-on experience with software integration on embedded platforms (e.g. NVIDIA Xavier/Orin Infineon Aurix)
• Demonstrated ability to build reliable production-grade systems including large-scale architectures evaluation pipelines and performance-optimized models
• Leadership experience

Preferred Qualifications:

• ML-based planning approaches
• GPU or parallel computing for planning
• Track record of production deployment in real vehicles