Senior Robotics Systems Software Engineer

Senior Robotics Systems Software Engineer position on Cyngn’s Autonomy team, building and deploying software across the autonomous driving stack for industrial vehicles.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test, and deploy autonomy software for industrial vehicles, covering behavior and decision-making, motion planning, controls, and vehicle systems
• Develop and maintain production-quality C++ and Python software running on Cyngn’s autonomous vehicle platforms
• Develop and integrate algorithms for navigation, trajectory generation, vehicle control, obstacle handling, and autonomous behaviors
• Integrate autonomy software with sensors, drive-by-wire systems, vehicle hardware, and other onboard software components
• Bring up, validate, and debug software on real vehicles, tracing issues across autonomy modules, middleware, hardware interfaces, and vehicle behavior
• Create simulation scenarios, testing infrastructure, metrics, and regression tests to validate autonomy behavior before deployment
• Investigate field issues and edge cases, reproduce failures, identify root causes, and implement robust production fixes
• Support deployment and validation at customer facilities, translating real-world observations into autonomy stack improvements
• Collaborate with engineers in Planning, Controls, Perception, Localization, Vehicle Infrastructure, Hardware, QA, and Operations
• Contribute to architecture discussions, code reviews, technical design, and continuous improvement of the autonomy software

Requirements

• BS, MS, or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 3+ years of hands-on experience developing software for robotics, autonomous vehicles, or other autonomous systems
• Strong proficiency in modern C++ and working proficiency in Python
• Hands-on experience developing, testing, and deploying software on real robotic systems
• Experience with ROS/ROS2 or comparable robotics middleware
• Working knowledge of core robotics concepts including coordinate frames, kinematics, state estimation, motion planning, feedback control, and sensor integration
• Strong systems-level understanding of how autonomy components interact with each other and with vehicle hardware
• Experience debugging complex robotic systems where failures can span multiple software modules or hardware interfaces
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: algorithms, data structures, software architecture, testing, and code review
• Strong communication and problem-solving skills, with the ability to work across multiple engineering disciplines

Technologies

• C++
• Python
• ROS
• ROS2
• Linux
• Git
• Docker
• CMake

Bonus Qualifications

• Technical depth in at least one area of robotics or autonomous systems: behavior and decision-making; motion planning; vehicle or motion control
• Experience developing autonomous vehicles, mobile robots, industrial robots, or similar systems
• Experience with behavior trees, state machines, or other architectures for autonomous decision-making
• Experience with search-based or sampling-based motion planning methods such as A*, Hybrid A*, RRT, or related algorithms
• Experience with feedback control, vehicle dynamics, trajectory tracking, MPC, or optimization-based control
• Experience with simulation environments and automated autonomy testing
• Experience integrating sensors, actuators, drive-by-wire systems, or embedded/real-time components
• Experience developing tooling, metrics, and CI/CD infrastructure for robotic systems
• Familiarity with Linux, Git, Docker, CMake, and modern software development workflows
• Experience taking robotics functionality from prototype through validation and production deployment

First 90 Days

• Build an understanding of Cyngn’s autonomy architecture, simulation environment, vehicle platforms, development workflow, and deployment process
• Partner with engineers across autonomy, infrastructure, hardware, QA, and operations to trace representative vehicle behaviors and identify high-value reliability, integration, and test-coverage risks
• Deliver one scoped production improvement (example: fix a well-understood autonomy defect, add a regression scenario, or improve diagnostic tooling) and validate it in simulation and, where appropriate, on a vehicle
• Propose a prioritized plan for addressing one or two larger cross-stack risks, including candidate success metrics, data sources, and measurement approach

By 6 Months

• Complete a production-quality autonomy improvement spanning two or more subsystem boundaries, accepted into a release candidate and/or deployed at production customer sites
• Establish baseline metrics and demonstrate early improvement such as improved scenario pass rate, fewer interventions, reduced tracking error, or faster failure resolution
• Add reusable simulation scenarios, regression tests, diagnostics, or validation tools incorporated into team release-candidate testing
• Publish a technical design or process improvement reviewed and adopted by affected teams

By 12 Months

• Demonstrate sustained, measurable production improvement against the six-month baseline through broader deployment and fleet monitoring
• Own a significant autonomy capability from design through implementation, vehicle validation, deployment, and production monitoring
• Improve team effectiveness through documentation, code and design reviews, and reusable cross-stack debugging practices
• Demonstrate technical ownership via observable signals including reviewing one or two repositories, leading triage for a class of field issues, or maintaining adopted runbooks and tools used by other engineers

Benefits

• Health benefits (Medical, Dental, Vision) through Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, and Guardian, with multiple plan tiers
• Ancillary benefits including accident, critical illness, and hospital indemnity plans (Voya)
• Company-paid basic life insurance, plus voluntary (supplemental) life for you and your dependents
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance, fully paid by Cyngn
• HSA and FSA (Health & Dependent Daycare)
• Employee Assistance Program
• 1:1 Health Concierge
• Company 401(k)
• Commuter Benefits
• Flexible PTO policy
• Paid Parental Leave
• Daily lunches for in-office employees and a fully-stocked kitchen with snacks and beverages

Interview Process

• Application review by a real person
• One-sided video interview
• Recruiter touch point covering the process and answering questions
• 45-minute interview with the hiring manager
• Full-loop interview process with 3-4 additional conversations to evaluate technical and soft skills and culture fit
• Final onsite interview with the team