---
title: 'Research Scientist, Learnable Planner at Waabi'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-learnable-planner-waabi-us-w8xd0ke83107'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Research Scientist, Learnable Planner at Waabi

- **Company:** Waabi
- **Location:** US &, Canada
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2025-03-04
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/waabi/a73a62bd-3ae9-417e-84c6-8a4c94846222

## Job description

Waabi, founded by AI visionary Raquel Urtasun, is the leader in Physical AI. With a world-class team, we're unlocking the next era of autonomous transportation with technology that's powering commercial autonomous trucks and robotaxis. Waabi is backed by and partners with world leaders in AI, automotive, logistics, and deep tech.

With offices in Toronto, San Francisco, Dallas, and Pittsburgh, Waabi is growing quickly and looking for diverse, innovative and collaborative candidates who want to impact the world in a positive way. To learn more visit: www.waabi.ai

The Motion Planning team delivers the core module within the autonomy stack that makes decisions and generates trajectories for our self-driving trucks. As a research scientist working on Learnable Planner, you will invent new AI technologies that support scalable planning solutions enabling our launch of fully driverless autonomous trucks. You will contribute towards Waabi's vision of a single AI system that learns end-to-end and in a provably safe manner as well as our revolutionary high-fidelity, closed-loop simulator, Waabi World.

You will... Design and execute on a research agenda for deep-learning based motion planning for self-driving. Leverage and advance the state-of-the-art in robotics and machine learning to enable safe self-driving at scale, with advanced techniques in imitation and reinforcement learning, planning and search, perception and prediction, simulation, foundation models and more. Support deploying solutions to our production systems, collaborating closely with platform teams to ensure seamless integration of research findings into production systems. Stay up-to-date and advance beyond the state-of-the-art in artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, and self-driving technologies. Champion engineering excellence, ensuring high-quality, well structured and tested code. Submit and publish work externally at top machine learning, computer vision, and robotics conferences (NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, CVPR, etc.) and post to our company blog.

Qualifications: MS/PhD degree in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Robotics and/or similar technical field(s) of study. Exceptional Bachelor’s students will also be considered. Experience in planning/decision making approaches (e.g., imitation learning, reinforcement learning, optimal control, optimization based approaches, search methods, probabilistic decision making). Demonstrated research experience through previous internships, work experience, research projects, and papers at top conferences. Strong quantitative background and coursework in or working knowledge of linear algebra, calculus, and probability. Proficient in reading and coding in Python. Passionate about self-driving technologies, solving hard problems, and creating innovative solutions.

Bonus/nice to have: Previous experience in self-driving technology. Experience deploying ML/DL models to a production motion planning or related robotics stack. Proficiency in Pytorch, Rust, C++ and/or CUDA.

The US yearly salary range for this role is: $158,000 - $269,000 USD in addition to competitive perks & benefits. Waabi US Inc.’s yearly salary ranges are determined based on several factors in accordance with the Company’s compensation practices. The salary base range is reflective of the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Note: The Company provides additional compensation for employees in this role, including equity incentive awards and an annual performance bonus.

Perks/Benefits: Competitive compensation and equity awards. Health and Wellness benefits encompassing Medical, Dental and Vision coverage (for full-time employees only). Unlimited Vacation. Flexible hours and Work from Home support. Daily drinks, snacks and catered meals (when in office). Regularly scheduled team building activities and social events both on-site, off-site & virtually. As we grow, this list continues to evolve!

Waabi is a technology start-up building technologies to transform the way the world moves. Join our talented team to be a part of the future and to make an impact!

Waabi is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating a supportive, inclusive, and accessible workplace for all our employees. We seek applicants of all backgrounds and identities, across race, color, ethnicity, national origin or ancestry, age, citizenship, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military or veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or parental status, caregiver status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law. We make workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process please let our recruiting team know.

## About Waabi

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Waabi is pioneering Physical AI for autonomous vehicles, starting with self-driving trucks and expanding into robotaxis, using a breakthrough interpretable AI model and the industry's most realistic neural simulator.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C, $1B total funding)
- **Headquarters**: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Raquel Urtasun

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: Autonomous vehicle technology, truck transportation, logistics, robotaxi services
- **Target customers**: B2B – trucking fleets, logistics providers, and eventually ride-hailing operators; enterprise partnerships with OEMs and transportation companies
- **Mission**: To empower humanity to build a better tomorrow by fundamentally rethinking how autonomous vehicles are developed, deployed, and scaled – safely and efficiently.

## Products & Services
- **Waabi Driver**: An end-to-end, interpretable and verifiable AI system that enables self-driving capabilities for trucks and, soon, robotaxis. The system is designed to be scalable and safe by leveraging a next-generation neural simulator (Waabi World) for validation before deployment on public roads.
- **Waabi World**: The industry’s most realistic neural simulator, used for testing and training the Waabi Driver in millions of scenarios, dramatically reducing the time and resources needed to bring autonomous vehicles to market.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metrics**: Annual Revenue: $11.2M (est., from private data providers); Total Funding: ~$1B across four rounds; Headcount: 271 employees (+51% YoY)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Khosla Ventures (lead in Series B & C), Uber, Volvo Group Venture Capital, Radical Ventures, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture arm)
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Raised $750M Series C in January 2026 (led by Khosla Ventures)
  - Expanding from autonomous trucks into robotaxi market (hired Ryan Wallace as GM of Robotaxi in Sept 2026)
  - 52 active job postings (+62% YoY job posting growth)
  - Talent influx from Cruise, Aurora, Uber, Waymo, TuSimple, NVIDIA

## Competitive Advantages
- **Interpretable & verifiable AI**: Unlike black-box systems, Waabi’s end-to-end model is designed to be transparent and auditable, increasing trust and regulatory viability.
- **Neural simulator (Waabi World)**: Enables massive-scale virtual testing that accelerates development while maintaining safety – a key moat over rivals that rely on costly real-world miles.
- **Founder-led**: Raquel Urtasun is a world-renowned AI researcher (former Uber ATG chief scientist) with deep expertise in computer vision and autonomous systems.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale the Waabi Driver** for commercial trucking operations and simultaneously **enter the robotaxi market**.
- **Deepen OEM and strategic partnerships** (e.g., with Volvo and Uber) to integrate technology into production vehicles.
- **Continue aggressive hiring** of AI researchers, software engineers, systems engineers, and policy experts across North America.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Values safety, efficiency, data-driven decision-making, and a "virtuous cycle of innovation." Emphasis on real-world impact and personal growth.
- **Remote/Hybrid**: Offers remote flexibility with 5 offices across North America (Toronto, San Francisco, Dallas, Phoenix, Pittsburgh). Many roles are hybrid or remote.
- **Engineering culture**: Technical stack includes Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow, CUDA, ROS, Linux, Kubernetes, and proprietary simulation tools. 43% of employees are in technical roles, 15% in research.
- **Perks**: Not explicitly listed, but strong employer rating (4.6/5 on third-party reviews) and high compensation (e.g., Staff Software Developer median ~$151K USD, Systems Engineer ~$124K).
- **Growth opportunities**: 51% YoY headcount growth, many leadership hires; career progression from intern to director roles is common.

## Sources
1. [waabi.ai/careers](https://www.waabi.ai/careers)
2. [waabi.ai/company](https://waabi.ai/company)
3. [jobs.lever.co/waabi](https://jobs.lever.co/waabi)
4. [linkedin.com/company/waabi](https://www.linkedin.com/company/waabi)
5. [cbinsights.com/company/waabi](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/waabi)

## Other roles at Waabi

- [Vehicle Reliability Engineer - Night Shift](https://feeny.ai/job/vehicle-reliability-engineer-night-shift-waabi-dallas-3e8r7gae8dfc) — Dallas, TX
- [Senior Product Designer, Autonomy Data & Tooling](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-designer-autonomy-data-tooling-waabi-toronto-rm8emj4m9qcv) — Toronto, Canada
- [Staff Planner SW Quality Architect](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-planner-sw-quality-architect-waabi-us-rtftjrfsqkj1) — US &, Canada
- [Staff Systems Engineer - Operational Readiness and Field Safety](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-systems-engineer-operational-readiness-and-field-safety-waabi-united-ww24dedpeqtv) — United States
- [Applied AI Security Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/applied-ai-security-engineer-waabi-united-states-yqfqwngpexaz) — United States
- [Test & Evaluation Operator](https://feeny.ai/job/test-evaluation-operator-waabi-phoenix-7cts9eejextc) — Phoenix, AZ
- [Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) Software/Firmware Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/hardware-in-the-loop-hil-software-firmware-engineer-waabi-pittsburgh-n3m7g0gzdfb4) — Pittsburgh, PA
- [Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) Team Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/hardware-in-the-loop-hil-team-lead-waabi-pittsburgh-36jhb2942yj2) — Pittsburgh, PA
- [Bringup Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/bringup-engineer-waabi-pittsburgh-0p9szxz048d8) — Pittsburgh, PA
- [Shift Supervisor - Day Shift](https://feeny.ai/job/shift-supervisor-day-shift-waabi-dallas-yvd80qd56k96) — Dallas, TX