MPC Specialist Cruise Automation, Inc.
San Francisco, CA

Job Description

We're the driverless car company.

We believe in improving people's lives by making transportation safer, more accessible, and more convenient. We're building the world's most advanced software to fuel the driverless cars that safely connect people to the places, things, and experiences they care about.

We seek and embrace diversity in all of its forms. We continuously push ourselves to think differently and take ownership wherever it's needed. This is a place for dreamers and doers to succeed. If you share our passion for achieving what some say is impossible, join us.

About the role:

Cruise is looking for a Model Predictive Control Specialist to to help us formulate, tune and test our trajectory optimization algorithms to more safely and smoothly drive the car through challenging situations and conditions. You will work as part of the Motion Planning team, which takes coarse maneuver primitives and obstacle predictions from upper levels of Planning and Prediction and generates the trajectory that our car takes on the road. We formulate and solve optimization problems online, considering kinematic feasibility, (e.g. the vehicle can follow the path, considering capabilities like turning radius and braking ability), collision avoidance, and comfort.

In this position, you will work closely with Planning and Prediction to determine the best interface boundaries for separating contextual decision-making from high-fidelity trajectory optimization, and work with Vehicle Controls on vehicle modeling, path following, and interfaces to lower controls layers to ensure that the physical vehicle is able to smoothly and accurately execute the planned trajectory.

Day-to-day responsibilities include:

* Designing algorithm architectures to most effectively and cleanly turn information about the world into optimization problems that can be solved efficiently.
* Tuning costs and parameters to improve car behavior
* Collaborating with C++ Software Engineers on our team to build more readable, testable, and extensible interfaces within our software stack
* Creating test frameworks and visualization tools to aid understanding of algorithm performance and increase iteration speed
* Collaborating with Systems Engineers and QA to root cause issues, proactively create test plans for new features, and define useful metrics for analyzing performance

You should apply for this role if you have the following qualifications:

* 2+ years of industry work in motion planning or related field
* Deep understanding of model predictive control and trajectory optimization algorithms, including practical experience with tuning
* Experience with runtime performance of optimization algorithms
* Experience and understanding of dynamics fundamentals and geometric algorithms
* Experience and understanding of classical or modern feedback control theory and techniques
* Experience writing C++ in a production environment
* Modern software development (version control, code review, unit testing, CI, etc)
* Ph.D., M.S. in controls, optimization, path planning, or equivalent field. B.S. with strong work experience in the field may be considered.

Bonus points!

* Experience with autonomous vehicles
* Experience in code optimization or high performance computing
* Experience writing numerical optimization algorithms

Perks of being a Cruiser:

While doing meaningful work is the best perk of all, we also offer the following programs and benefits to support the extraordinary humans who serve as the backbone in making our robot cars go:

* The opportunity to solve difficult problems that have immediate and valuable real-world applications
* Competitive salary and benefits including 401k Cruise matching program to help you meet your long-term financial goals
* Medical / dental / vision, AD+D and Life
* Paid parental leave so you can spend time with the newest addition(s) to your family's fleet
* Health and Wellness reimbursement
* Flexible vacation and 10 paid company holidays
* State of the art equipment for your workstation
* Healthy lunch, snacks, dinner



Take a glimpse through the lens of a Cruiser on our LinkedIn Page

GM Cruise LLC provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, GM Cruise LLC complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training. Pursuant to applicable laws, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. And if you believe that you will need any type of accommodation, please let us know.

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