Senior Software Engineer - Vehicle Motion Planning and Control

About Zendar Zendar builds a radar-centric autonomy stack which makes any vehicle - from cars to robots - autonomous in any environment. With our deep radar DNA, we have architected our solution to put RF sensing at the core of all perception. The result is a system that handles long range, high speeds, and bad weather not as edge cases but as a core strength of the autonomy stack. Because radars naturally measure both 3D position and velocity for every object in the environment, radar-centric autonomy is extremely compute- and data-efficient. Our autonomous vehicle needs only a few thousand dollars of hardware to make it completely autonomous, making this the cheapest way to build an autonomous vehicle by far. See a demo of Zendar's foundational RF perception and driving functions. To develop this capability we had to build the entire stack in house - from radar sensor hardware to signal processing to multi-modal perception foundation models and path and trajectory planning. As part of a small team, you will have a front-row seat to seeing how a complete autonomy stack is architected and how your engineering decisions improve the ability to navigate autonomously in the real world. Although AI is central to what we build, our hiring process is intentionally human: every résumé is reviewed by a real person. Your Role The Vehicle Motion Planning & Control team is responsible for behavior and trajectory planning for our autonomous vehicle — deciding where the vehicle goes and how it gets there. The team also owns vehicle control (longitudinal and lateral) and the on-vehicle integration that makes our vehicles drive safely, comfortably, and predictably in the real world. The team's 6-month roadmap is to rapidly unlock new driving behaviors, like Navigate on Autopilot (NoA) on highways. We are hiring a Software Engineer to join the team and you will own components from algorithm design through real-time C++ implementation, simulation, tuning, and on-vehicle validation. Because the team is small and the surface area is large, this role is ideal for someone with strong software fundamentals, a solid grounding in robotics or controls, and genuine eagerness to see their code move a physical vehicle. Key Responsibilities Design and Build the Motion Planning StackDevelop trajectory planning and decision-making algorithms that produce safe, smooth, dynamically feasible motion in dynamic, uncertain environments — including scenarios with noisy or incomplete perception inputReason about interactions with other road users and translate desired driving behavior into algorithmic changes across the planning stackDevelop Vehicle Control SoftwareArchitect, implement, and validate control and estimation algorithms for the vehicle's longitudinal and lateral dynamicsWrite mission-critical, real-time C++ that runs on-vehicle and on embedded automotive computeIntegrate with Perception and PlatformWork closely with our Perception and Software Platform teams to define clean interfaces between perception output, planning, and controlSupport driving-function demos on our vehicles, from bring-up through customer-facing runsTest, Measure, and ImproveBuild simulation and analysis tooling in Python and C++ to evaluate planner and controller performance before code ever touches a vehicleDefine metrics for driving quality and safety, extract insights from field data, and feed them back into developmentContribute to failure and hazard analyses and implement safety mitigations in planning and control software What We Look For Ability to work from the office in Lindau am Bodensee, at least from Tuesday to Thursday3+ years of software engineering experience, with production-quality coding skills in modern C++ and PythonHands-on experience in motion planning, decision making, or vehicle controls (e.g., optimization-based planning, search methods, optimal control, MPC, probabilistic decision making) on autonomous vehicles, ADAS, or robotic systemsSolid foundation in linear algebra, geometry, statistics & probability, and vehicle dynamicsExperience taking features from design through real-world deployment — not just prototypesAbility to break down complex, ambiguous problems into well-defined technical solutionsSomebody with solid opinions based on experience, yet open-minded and flexible to find the best solution for the situation Bonus Points Experience deploying planning or control software on real vehicles (AV, ADAS features like ACC, AEB, lane keeping / lane changing)Experience with real-time and embedded systems and RTOSExperience with ML-based approaches to planning (imitation learning, RL, learned cost functions) alongside classical methods What We Offer Opportunity to make an impact at a young, venture-backed company in an emerging marketCollaboration with smart and motivated engineers and ability to execute your vision in a high impact roleCompetitive salary ranging from EUR 82,000-115,000 annually depending on experienceHybrid work model: in office 3 days per week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), the rest… work from wherever!Modern Workspace: Fully equipped, modern office on the beautiful lake Constance in the Alpine foothillsDaily lunch supported by a fixed amount for in-office days to be used freely at your discretion and a stocked fridge in the officeEgym Wellpass Zendar is committed to creating a diverse environment where talented people come to do their best work. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.