Senior Software Engineer (Manipulation)

Description
General Motors is reimagining automation at economy scale to make manufacturing more competitive in the USA.
You are a Senior Software Engineer who has deep experience in building manipulation planning and control libraries. The work covers collision-free motion generation, trajectory optimization, and the execution layer that turns a planned motion into repeatable movement on real arms.
The target applications are C++, Python, and ROS 2 on FANUC arms and mobile manipulators, under cycle time and reliability requirements. You have the taste to see important problems, the talent to build great solutions and the grit to get it done.
This role sits in the core robotics team and works alongside controls and perception engineers.
The Opportunity

• Build and own manipulation planning capability: collision-free planning, trajectory optimization, and time parameterization.

• Implement and tune planners for the target applications, with cycle time as a first-class requirement.

• Build the collision environment representation from perception output and static scene models.

• Implement Cartesian and constrained motion planning for approach, grasp, and place phases.

• Handle the mobile manipulation cases: planning with base placement, redundancy resolution, and whole-body motion.

• Build the execution layer that monitors trajectory tracking and reacts to deviation and contact.

• Define the interface between perception, planning, and control, and keep it clean as the system grows.

• Diagnose planning failures from field data and turn them into regression cases.

The Job Requirements
Experience

• 6+ years of professional engineering experience, with 2+ years in motion planning or manipulation.

• Experience deploying manipulation planning on physical arms in a production or field setting.

• Experience meeting a cycle time requirement, not only a feasibility requirement.

Education

• M.S. degree or higher in Robotics, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related technical field.

• Equivalent industry experience with demonstrated simulation depth can be considered.

Core technical background

• Strong grounding in motion planning: sampling-based methods, optimization-based methods, and their respective failure modes.

• Solid kinematics and dynamics: forward and inverse kinematics, redundancy resolution, singularity handling, and Jacobian methods.

• Experience with trajectory optimization and time-optimal path parameterization.

• Experience with collision checking and distance queries, including performance characteristics.

• Hands-on experience with MoveIt, OMPL, TrajOpt, Drake, or comparable frameworks.

• Strong C++ plus Python. Hands-on experience with ROS or ROS 2.

Systems mindset

• Ability to judge how much fidelity a given validation question requires.

• Comfortable trading simulation speed against accuracy.

Collaboration

• Ability to work effectively with remote teams across multiple time zones.

• Treats simulation as a product with internal users.

Nice to have

• Experience with FANUC arms or the FANUC controller interfaces.

• Experience with force control, impedance control, or contact-rich manipulation.

• Experience with mobile manipulation and whole-body control.

• Experience with learned or hybrid planning approaches.

• Prior open-source contributions to MoveIt or the ROS manipulation ecosystem.

Compensation: The compensation information is a good faith estimate only. It is based on what a successful applicant might be paid in accordance with applicable state laws. The compensation may not be representative for positions located outside of the California Bay Area.
The salary range for this role is $129,400 to $234,100. The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.
Bonus Potential: An incentive pay program offers payouts based on company performance, job level, and individual performance.
Benefits: GM offers a variety of health and wellbeing benefit programs. Benefit options include medical, dental, vision, Health Savings Account, Flexible Spending Accounts, retirement savings plan, sickness and accident benefits, life insurance, paid vacation & holidays, tuition assistance programs, employee assistance program, GM vehicle discounts and more.
This role is based remotely, but if the selected candidate lives within a specific mile radius of a GM hub, they will be expected to report to the location three times a week {or other frequency dictated by your manager}.
Relocation benefits are available for candidates who qualify under company policy.
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