Kodiak Robotics, Inc. was founded in 2018 and has become a leader in autonomous ground transportation committed to a safer and more efficient future for all. The company has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) powered technology stack purpose-built for commercial trucking and the public sector. The company delivers freight daily for its customers across the southern United States using its autonomous technology. In 2024, Kodiak became the first known company to publicly announce delivering a driverless semi-truck to a customer. Kodiak is also leveraging its commercial self-driving software to develop, test and deploy autonomous capabilities for the U.S. Department of Defense.
Kodiak Robotics, Inc. was founded in 2018 and has become a leader in autonomous ground transportation committed to a safer and more efficient future for all. The company has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) powered technology stack purpose-built for commercial trucking and the public sector. The company delivers freight daily for its customers across the southern United States using its autonomous technology. In 2024, Kodiak became the first known company to publicly announce delivering a driverless semi-truck to a customer. Kodiak is also leveraging its commercial self-driving software to develop, test and deploy autonomous capabilities for the U.S. Department of Defense.
Kodiak is recruiting a Staff Software Engineer to lead design and development of mission planning, routing, and human-assisted autonomy for Kodiak driverless trucks. The role provides scope and visibility to influence the roadmap for the entire motion planning stack, including behavior, prediction, and trajectory generation.
This is an opportunity to collaborate with Product, Perception, Controls, and other cross-functional teams in order to improve overall autonomy performance. Customers interact with Kodiak trucks through mission assignments, making this a key engineering position to achieve product excellence.
The role spans a range of motion planning responsibilities, from graph traversal and routing, to mission planning and product development, to human-assisted autonomy and operations.
In this role, you will:
- Lead the design and development of mission planning, routing, and human-assisted autonomy for driverless operation on public roads
- Develop the architecture and long-term roadmap for motion planning
- Identify metrics to orient engineering teams toward product excellence
- Study the product for opportunities to delight our customers
- Mentor and provide technical leadership to junior and senior engineers, raising the bar for engineering excellence across the engineering organization
- Integrate onboard and offboard driving logic
- Collaborate with human-assisted autonomy and operations specialists to facilitate safe, efficient missions
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the Kodiak Driver
- Automate and expedite truck launches and landings
- Partner cross-functionally with Perception, Controls, Systems, Simulation, and Product teams to define interfaces, requirements, and system behavior
- Solve difficult real-world problems involving route generation, mission updates, responsive driving, real-time and cloud computing, and more!
What you’ll bring:
- 6+ years of experience developing production-level robotics software
- Strong facility with modern C++
- Expertise in motion planning, graph theory, distributed computing, and related domains
- Delivery of complex autonomous systems
- Leadership to solve ambiguous, real-world challenges
Bonus points if you have:
- Managed or mentored robotics engineers
- Deployed software on autonomous vehicles
- Built a safety case for driverless autonomy
- Improved system performance (latency, throughput, reliability) in production environments
- Built on simulation frameworks
- Based decisions on data analysis
What we offer:
- Competitive compensation package including equity and annual bonuses
- Excellent Medical, Dental, and Vision plans through Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, and MetLife (including a medical plan with infertility benefits)
- MetLife Legal Services, Identity & Fraud Protection, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, Accident Insurance, & Critical Illness Insurance
- Flexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, and generous parental leave policies
- Our office is centrally located in Mountain View, CA
- Office perks: dog-friendly, free catered lunch, a fully stocked kitchen, and free EV charging
- Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, Life Insurance
- Wellbeing Benefits - Headspace through Cigna, Calm through Kaiser, One Medical, Gympass, Spring Health through Cigna, Rula (mental health navigation)
- Fidelity 401(k)
- Commuter, FSA, Dependent Care FSA, HSA
- Various incentive programs (referral bonuses, patent bonuses, etc.)
The pay range listed below reflects the base salary in our SF/Silicon Valley location, across several internal levels. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors including: work location, experience, relevant training, education, skill level and performance during interview. Total compensation at Kodiak includes base pay, equity, bonus and a competitive benefits package
Skills Required
- Strong background in robotics, planning, optimization, and mathematics
- At least 5 years of experience writing production-level C++ code
- High standards for software quality and rigor
- Good communication skills and collaborative attitude
- Ability to iterate quickly and work hands-on
- Interest in defining autonomy metrics and evaluation strategies
- Knowledge of modern C++ (C++14 and newer)
Kodiak Robotics Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Kodiak Robotics and has not been reviewed or approved by Kodiak Robotics.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is considered market-competitive for core engineering roles, with role postings indicating strong senior bands and offers aligned to autonomy peers. Salary ranges visible on listings reinforce competitiveness for experienced technical hires.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants are commonly included with standard multi‑year vesting, and listings frequently note salary plus bonus and equity as part of offers. This makes ownership a regular component of total rewards for technical hires.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage includes medical, dental, and vision alongside life and short‑/long‑term disability, with FSA/HSA options available. Wellness partners such as mental‑health and primary‑care services are highlighted alongside core plans.
Kodiak Robotics Insights
What We Do
Kodiak Robotics is an autonomous technology company redefining the long-haul trucking industry. We believe self-driving trucks will be the first economically viable application of autonomous vehicle technology. We founded Kodiak in the spring of 2018 to make that belief a reality. Safety is our top priority. We are taking a safe and responsible approach to developing and testing our technology. We are proud to work with some of the best in the business. We’ve built a world class team of technologists from leading autonomous driving programs who know the industry inside and out. Our combined experience and commitment to the vision will allow us to put self-driving technology on the road in the safest and most effective way.
