Senior Engineering Lead - Autonomy

Why Join Seegrid? Seegrid is the leading provider of Physical AI for material handling. Our solution includes autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), fleet management software, actionable analytics, and best-in-class services and support. Our technology is proven. Our AMRs have safely driven millions of autonomous miles in real-world production facilities. We are seeking energetic, bright, and friendly people to help achieve our vision: to fortify global supply chains and create profitable economies with safe, seamless, and smart mobile robotics solutions. About the Role The Autonomy team at Seegrid is responsible for delivering robust robotics primitives to enable product features and capabilities associated with our enterprise material handling solutions. As the Senior Engineering Lead for the Planning and Execution Team, you will act as a player-coach, serving as the primary technical anchor for a small, dedicated team of senior/staff engineers. You will take a lead role in transforming our existing AMR stack into a next-generation navigation framework. This is a heavily technical role designed for a high-caliber Individual Contributor (IC) who wants to retain deep hands-on code ownership while stepping up to manage and mentor a tight-knit group of senior/staff engineers. You will split your time between architecting production-grade C++ navigation primitives and handling targeted personnel management responsibilities to keep your team aligned and growing. You will be supported by a Technical Product Manager (TPM) who handles project logistics, enabling you to dedicate up to 70% of your bandwidth to high-impact development. Under your technical guidance, the team will develop modular and extensible discrete subsystems such as global path planning, local trajectory controllers, behavioral execution, and coordinated spatial handling. You will also ensure seamless integration across our broader engineering architecture, collaborating with parallel teams in Perception, Fleet, and Truck Applications Software. This is a remote position, and reports directly to the VP of Robotics. Responsibilities Include: Technical Leadership & Individual Contribution (∼70% of time) Research, design, develop, and maintain a high-performance navigation stack in production-grade C++ Guide the team in developing reusable, modular code blocks that can be easily composed to solve complex industrial material handling tasks Profile, benchmark, and optimize runtime performance for onboard autonomy software Ensure exceptionally high engineering standards by overseeing the development of unit, module, and system-level tests, while fostering a rigorous, collaborative peer code review culture Collaborate closely with Perception, Fleet, and application engineering partners to deliver reliable navigation solutions in accordance with our product roadmap Team and Personnel Management (∼30% of time) Serve as the direct people manager for a team of ∼5 software engineers, conducting regular 1-on-1s and performance evaluations while actively guiding their technical and career development Partner closely with the Technical Product Manager (TPM) to manage and protect the team's sprint planning, tracking velocity, and balancing immediate feature delivery with long-term technical debt management Coordinate on-call rotations in support of core software releases and live facility installations to ensure reliable field operations Required Qualifications: BS, MS, or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, or a related technical field 5+ years of relevant professional experience Prior experience mentoring junior or senior engineers, with a desire to take on formal line-management responsibilities for a small team Ability to translate high-level product goals and cross-functional dependencies into actionable technical roadmaps and sprint tasks Fluent in modern C++ with secondary experience in Python (desired) to effectively review, profile, and guide the team's production output Deep familiarity with open-source navigation and motion planning frameworks such as ROS/ROS2, Nav2, or MoveIt2 Hands-on expertise in one or more core autonomy domains to include Graph/Sample-based Planning, Behavioral Planning, Decision Making, Multi-Agent Coordination, and Object Manipulation Solid understanding of modern software engineering deployment infrastructure, including automated CI/CD pipelines, test-driven development, and version control systems like Git Strong commitment to a culture of functional safety, software quality, and reliability, which is essential for deploying physical machinery safely into active industrial environments Desired Qualifications: Direct experience working on commercial autonomous vehicles, AGVs, mobile warehouse robotics, or related safety-critical systems Experience with modern task execution frameworks, such as behavior trees and state machines Experience leveraging robotic simulation tools (e.g., Gazebo, Nvidia Isaac Sim) to validate algorithm stability within automated testing workflows Experience leveraging generative AI tools to accelerate code development, refactoring, and documentation Experience working with Agile leadership frameworks (Scrum, Kanban), managing sprint planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives Seegrid has been recognized nationally as a Best-Place-to-Work. We'd love to have you join us! All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, nation origin, protected veteran status, or disability status. Seegrid is an equal opportunity employer Minorities/Females/People with Disabilities/Protected Veterans/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity.