Software Engineer, Robotics - Motion Planning Postmates
San Francisco, CA

Job Description

At Postmates X, we are reimagining how things move in cities. Serve, our personable sidewalk delivery robot, is our vision for the future of delivery. It's designed to take deliveries away from congested streets and onto underutilized alleys and sidewalks, to save energy, reduce emissions, reduce traffic, and make deliveries faster and cheaper. Why move two-pound burritos with two-ton cars?

Serve has been years in the making and has already done thousands of customer deliveries.

WHO ARE WE?

We are tech industry veterans in software, hardware, and design who are pooling our individual talents together to build a legacy. Our team is inclusive, agile, and driven by a common purpose. We are solving real-world problems with machine learning, computer vision, and robotics, with a mindful eye towards the end-to-end user experience. By joining our team, you will help create the first robotic helpers entering our cities: moving alongside us and running our errands!

WHAT WILL YOU DO?

You will design, integrate and maintain solutions to global routing and obstacle avoidance subsystems for autonomous platforms operating in complex outdoor environments. You will be responsible for helping vehicles understand how to navigate from point A to B in the real world that looks a little different every time the robot leaves the depot.

RESPONSIBILITIES

* Contribute in one or more of the following areas: obstacle prediction, path planning, obstacle avoidance maneuvers, route optimization, congestion management strategies
* Solve real-world robotics problems
* Design novel algorithms and produce robust, well-tested software
* Balance research, cross-domain resources, and product-driven milestones
* Collaborate with localization, perception, control, and machine learning teams to source the right pipelines to solve complex problems.
* Benchmark and validate routing and planning subsystems
* Scale your solutions to a large fleet of deployed systems\

QUALIFICATIONS

* Minimum 3 years industry experience
* MS or Ph.D. degree in CS/CE/EE/ME/Robotics or equivalent with focus on Motion Planning or related field
* Highly skilled in geometric and/or sampling based planning algorithms (A*, D*, RRTs, PRMs, Lattice, Convex Programming, Probabilistic Planning, etc.)
* Understanding of configuration spaces
* Understanding of graph-based data structures (quadtree, octree, KD-tree, etc.)
* Experience handling large data sets efficiently
* Foundational understanding of kinematics and dynamics and designing to their constraints
* Solid C++/Python foundation and a commitment to writing clean, well-architected code
* A track record of solving hard problems

BONUS

* Experience developing real-time autonomous robotics applications
* Experience with real-time sensor fusion (e.g. IMU, lidar, camera, odometry, radar)
* Experience with actors in dynamic environments
* Experience with nonlinear optimization strategies
* Experience with problems involving uncertainty, unpredictability, stochastic processes and/or game theory approaches

BENEFITS

* Competitive salary and generous stock option plan
* Medical, dental and vision insurance
* We'll provide the equipment you need to work efficiently and creatively
* Paid parental leave, vacation time and sick time
* Catered lunches and open snack bar
* Impact-first work environment (no politics, no pandering)
* Huge company vision (we need you to build the future, not just maintain the status quo)
* Full support to contribute to open source projects
* Awesome office located in SOMA just minutes from BART, Muni, AC Transit, and SamTrans