Applied Intuition · 17 hours ago
Software Engineer - Planning (Reward Design)
Sunnyvale, CA
Full-time
Hybrid
Mid Level
$125K/yr - $222K/yr
3+ years expApplied Intuition is the vehicle intelligence company that accelerates the global adoption of safe, AI-driven machines. The Motion Planning Engineer will design and implement cost and reward functions for autonomous driving systems, collaborating with various teams to optimize vehicle behavior and performance.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)Autonomous VehiclesEnterprise SoftwareInfrastructureSoftware
Responsibilities
Design, implement, and validate novel reward and cost functions that guide the autonomous vehicle's behavior, balancing safety, comfort, and efficiency
Work with our behavior team to integrate and optimize cost functions, ensuring optimal trajectory generation and comfortable, safe driving
Partner with our Reinforcement Learning (RL) research team to translate high-level behavioral goals into effective RL reward signals for training our learning-based agents
Analyze planning system performance against real-world and simulated data to iteratively refine and improve cost and reward mechanisms
Take ownership of the full life cycle of reward engineering solutions, from concept and prototyping to deployment and maintenance
Qualification
Required
3-5 years of professional experience in autonomous vehicle motion planning, robotics, or a related field
Strong programming skills in C++ and/or Python
Solid understanding of core motion planning concepts, including state-space search, sampling-based methods, and trajectory optimization
Demonstrated ability to analyze complex system behavior and distill it into clear, quantitative metrics
Enthusiasm about applying their skills to solve challenging problems in a fast-paced environment, and building towards an end-to-end strategy
Preferred
Prior exposure to machine learning concepts, particularly reinforcement learning
Experience with robotics middleware (e.g., ROS)
Experience with a simulation environment
Benefits
Equity in the form of options and/or restricted stock units
Comprehensive health, dental, vision, life and disability insurance coverage
401k retirement benefits with employer match
Learning and wellness stipends
Paid time off
Company
Applied Intuition
Applied Intuition provides software infrastructure to safely develop, test, and deploy autonomous vehicles
at scale.
1001-5000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Applied Intuition has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (122)
2024 (56)
2023 (33)
2022 (16)
2021 (4)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
$1.5BKey Investors
General Catalyst
2025-06-17Series F· $600M
2024-07-25Secondary Market· $300M
2024-03-11Series E· $250M
Leadership Team
Qasar Younis
Co-Founder and CEO
Peter Ludwig
CTO and Co-founder
Recent News
2025-12-11
globalventuring.com
2025-12-06
Company data provided by crunchbase