--- title: 'Staff Software Engineer, Motion Planning at AeroVect' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-motion-planning-aerovect-remote-6m73rxrf2t2q' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-12' --- # Staff Software Engineer, Motion Planning at AeroVect - **Company:** AeroVect - **Location:** Remote - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-08-25 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/aerovect/19f0b06f-548f-46e6-978d-ea07c2825d93 ## Job description ## Who We Are AeroVect is transforming ground handling with autonomy, redefining how airlines and ground service providers around the globe run day-to-day operations. We are a Series A company backed by top-tier venture capital investors in aviation and autonomous driving. Our customers include some of the world’s largest airlines and ground handling providers. For more information, visit [www.aerovect.com](http://www.aerovect.com). Job Description We are looking for an experienced Staff Software Engineer who can design and build best-in-class planning systems for autonomous driving in structured, low-speed environments. In this role, you'll be the technical backbone of the planning stack — owning the design and implementation of production-grade mission planning, behavior planning, and motion planning software. You'll work across the full planning pipeline to achieve category-defining vehicle autonomy for the airside, tackling hard problems in trajectory optimization, decision-making under uncertainty, and real-time constraint optimization. This opportunity offers a deeply technical engineer the chance to shape a market-defining enterprise product that combines autonomous vehicle technology with a robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) business model. This role reports to our Planning Tech Lead and works closely with the autonomy engineering team. You Will: - Design, implement, and iterate on the mission planner, behavior planner, and motion planner for autonomous ground support equipment operating in airport airside environments. - Drive key technical decisions across the planning stack — selecting algorithms, defining interfaces, and establishing the architecture that the team builds on. - Prototype and evaluate new planning approaches (e.g., optimization-based methods, search-based planners, learning-augmented pipelines) and bring the best ideas to production. - Collaborate cross-functionally with perception, controls, localization, and systems engineering teams to deliver an integrated autonomous driving system. - Establish and promote best practices in software development, functional safety, and systems engineering as they apply to the planning domain. - Mentor other engineers through technical guidance, code review, and design discussions. You Have: - Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Math, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Physics, or a related field. - Extensive hands-on experience designing and implementing planning modules for autonomous systems shipped to production or deployed in real-world operations. - Strong programming skills in C++ (preferred) or Python, and experience with Linux-based operating systems. - Demonstrated ability to take ambiguous technical problems and drive them to well-architected solutions independently. - Excellent communication skills, proactiveness, and a strong sense of ownership. We Prefer: - MS or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Robotics, or a related field. - Mastery of Modern C++ (14 and beyond) and safety-critical coding practices (e.g., MISRA, ISO 26262). - 5+ years of industry experience in planning for robotic ground vehicles. - In-depth understanding of DDS frameworks like ROS/ROS2 or other networking middleware. - Experience in startup environments, demonstrating adaptability to rapidly changing priorities. ## About AeroVect ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: AeroVect provides AI-powered autonomous ground support equipment (GSE) solutions to automate airside logistics for the world's largest airlines and airports. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series A) - **Headquarters**: South San Francisco, California, USA - **Founded**: 2020 - **Founders**: Raymond Wang and Eugenio Donati ## Core Business - **Primary Industry**: Aviation logistics and autonomous vehicle technology (Airside Automation) - **Target Customers**: Large airlines, ground handling companies, and airports (Enterprise B2B) - **Mission/Purpose**: To enable unprecedented safety, reliability, and operational certainty in global aviation by deploying AI-powered autonomous ground support equipment. ## Products & Services - **[AeroVect Driver™]**: An AI-powered, self-driving system for Ground Support Equipment (GSE). It is trained on the world's largest airside driving dataset, provides 360° total awareness, and is designed to reduce human error, prevent costly incidents (e.g., collisions), and maximize asset uptime. It is currently deployed in live production operations. Type: Enterprise AI/Software + Hardware. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available. - **Key Metric**: - **Total Funding**: $20.0M (as of Series A, Oct 2024) - **Latest Round**: $18.0M Series A (Oct 2024) led by Nava Ventures. - **Employee Growth**: 56 employees (+62.5% YoY), with a large uptick in active job postings (156). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Nava Ventures (Lead Series A), Outsiders Fund, Flybridge Capital, Graphene Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, Future Back Ventures. - **Growth Signals**: - **Rapid Hiring**: 156 active job postings, a **+1318.2% YoY** increase, indicating a major scaling phase. - **Proven Deployment**: Has logged the "most miles driven in live production operations" and handled tens of thousands of aircraft crossings. - **Global Presence**: Offices in San Francisco (HQ), New York, Atlanta, Toronto, and Frankfurt, with operations across 5 countries including the UK and Greece. ## Competitive Advantages - **Domain-Specific Platform**: Unlike general autonomy companies, AeroVect builds exclusively for the aviation airside environment, giving them a deep moat in a highly regulated, niche market with high barriers to entry. - **Production-Proven Tech**: Claims the "most miles driven in live production operations" and a proven safety record with tens of thousands of real-world aircraft crossings, offering a significant reliability advantage over competitors still in testing. - **Proprietary Dataset**: Trained on the world's largest airside driving dataset, which is a difficult-to-replicate asset. - **Clear ROI for Customers**: Directly addresses labor shortages with cost predictability, reduces insurance/accident risks, and unlocks operational efficiency (cost efficiency, safety, scale). ## Strategic Focus - **Scale & Deployment**: Moving from pilot to widespread commercial deployment, as evidenced by the massive surge in hiring for deployment and engineering roles. - **Expansion**: Growing physical presence in key aviation hubs (Frankfurt, Toronto, New York). - **Talent Acquisition**: Aggressively hiring top engineering (Perception, Localization, Safety), operations, and product talent to accelerate product development and global rollout. ## Why Work Here - **High-Impact Work**: Employees see their technology directly supporting mission-critical operations at major international airports. - **Strong Growth Trajectory**: Joining a well-funded startup (Series A) that is in a massive hiring spree (+1300% YoY in job postings) offers significant career growth potential and project ownership. - **Culture**: Described by employees as a supportive family-like environment that aims high and pushes boundaries. The company emphasizes "significant project ownership from day one." - **Perks & Benefits**: - **Equity for all employees** - Flexible PTO (Flexible vacation) & Paid holidays - Medical coverage - Meals & snacks (in office) - **Global impact** - opportunity to travel to deploy technology at sites around the world. - **Work Policy**: Hybrid/Office presence likely required given the nature of the hardware/software deployment, with multiple office locations in the US, Canada, and Europe. ## Sources 1. [aerovect.com](https://www.aerovect.com/company) 2. [aerovect.com](https://www.aerovect.com/) 3. [aerovect.com](https://www.aerovect.com/careers) 4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerovect) 5. 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