Staff Software Engineer, Planner

The posting, as DoorDash wrote it

About the Team

DoorDash Labs, established in 2018, serves as the innovation hub for DoorDash, focusing on developing automation and robotics solutions to enhance last-mile logistics. The team's mission is to create technologies that support and augment human networks, aiming to improve efficiency for Dashers, merchants, and consumers alike. We’re ruthlessly focused on business impact. We are a highly senior and nimble team composed of a core group of veterans from a variety of different robotics industries.

About the Role

We are seeking a seasoned Senior Planner Engineer with a proven track record of shipping production-level autonomy systems, with deep expertise in motion planning and trajectory optimization for unstructured, highly dynamic environments. The engineers will design, implement, and deploy behavior and motion planning algorithms that generate safe, reliable, and efficient motion plans amid uncertain agent behaviors and real-time unstructured constraints enable safe, reliable, and fully autonomous delivery. The ideal candidate has lived through the full development lifecycle of an autonomous product and intimately understands the practical challenges and trade-offs required to build planning systems that are not just novel, but robust, reliable, and performant. You will be a key technical voice, expected to solve our most critical challenges by drawing upon your extensive prior experience in the field.

You’re excited about this opportunity because you will…

• Design and ship real-time behavior and motion planning features for complex urban/suburb driving scenarios. Especially motion planning and trajectory optimization for unstructured highly dynamic environments
• Lead automation of root-cause analysis and systematically eliminate planner-related disengagements and long-tail failures.
• Build scalable evaluation, simulation, and validation frameworks to ensure safe rollout to new geo-fenced regions.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with perception, prediction, controls, and platform teams to deliver end-to-end autonomy improvements.
• Contribute to architecture decisions that improve planner robustness, generalization, and computational efficiency.

We’re excited about you because…

• You have a BS/MS/PhD in CS, EE, Robotics, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• You have strong C++ software engineering experience building robust, production-quality systems.
• You have experience developing or deploying motion planning, trajectory optimization, robotics, or real-time decision-making systems.
• You are comfortable working with data-driven evaluation, simulation, and performance metrics to guide engineering decisions.

We expect this position to be filled by 12/21/2026
Compensation

The successful candidate’s starting pay will fall within the pay range listed below and is determined based on job-related factors including, but not limited to, skills, experience, qualifications, work locati
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success have no place at DoorDash. We value a diverse workforce – people who identify as women, non-binary or gender non-conforming, LGBTQIA+, American Indian or Native Alaskan, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latinx, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, differently-abled, caretakers and parents, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply. Thank you to the Level Playing Field Institute for this statement of non-discrimination.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, and any other state or local hiring regulations, we will consider for employment any qualified applicant, including those with arrest and conviction records, in a manner consistent with the applicable regulation.

If you need any accommodations, please inform your recruiting contact upon initial connection.

Notice Regarding Use of AI and Automated Tools: To streamline our hiring process, DoorDash utilizes an automated recruitment tool called Metaview.

How it works: Metaview assists our recruiting team by evaluating job related qualifications and characteristics in connection with hiring. The tool is designed and used to support - rather than replace - human decision-making; trained personnel make final decisions with meaningful human review and oversight, and DoorDash does not use Metaview or other AI-enabled tool in a manner that has the effect of subjecting applicants or employees to discrimination based on any protected characteristic or proxy or for engaging in any protected activity under applicable law.

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