Senior Robotics Systems Software Engineer

About Cyngn, Inc.

Based in Mountain View, CA, Cyngn is a publicly-traded autonomous technology company. We deploy self-driving industrial vehicles -specifically autonomous tuggers -  to factories, warehouses, and other facilities throughout North America. To build this emergent technology, we are looking for innovative, motivated, and experienced leaders to join us and move this field forward. If you like to build, tinker, and create with a team of trusted and passionate colleagues, then Cyngn is the place for you.

Key reasons to join Cyngn:

We are small and big.

With under 100 employees, Cyngn operates with the energy of a startup. On the other hand, we’re publicly traded. This means our employees not only work in close-knit teams with mentorship from company leaders—they also get access to the liquidity of our publicly-traded equity.

We build today and deploy tomorrow.

Our autonomous vehicles aren’t just test concepts—they’re deployed to real clients right now. That means your work will have a tangible, visible impact.

We aren’t robots. We just develop them.

We’re a welcoming, diverse team of sharp thinkers and kind humans. Collaboration and trust drive our creative environment. At Cyngn, everyone’s perspective matters—and that’s what powers our innovation.

About the role

As a Senior Robotics Systems Software Engineer on Cyngn’s Autonomy team, you will develop, integrate, and deploy software across the autonomous driving stack for our industrial vehicles.

This role is ideal for a strong robotics generalist who enjoys working across subsystem boundaries. Depending on the problem, you may contribute to behavior and decision-making, motion planning, controls, localization, perception interfaces, simulation, or vehicle integration.

You will work closely with engineers across autonomy, vehicle infrastructure, hardware, QA, and deployment to turn robotics algorithms into reliable production systems operating on autonomous tuggers and forklifts at customer sites.

What you'll do

• Design, develop, test, and deploy software for autonomous industrial vehicles across areas including behavior and decision-making, motion planning, controls, and vehicle systems.
• Write and maintain production-quality C++ and Python software running on Cyngn’s autonomous vehicle platforms.
• Develop and integrate algorithms for navigation, trajectory generation, vehicle control, obstacle handling, and autonomous behaviors.
• Integrate autonomy software with sensors, drive-by-wire systems, vehicle hardware, and other onboard software components.
• Bring up, validate, and debug software on real vehicles, tracing issues across autonomy modules, middleware, hardware interfaces, and vehicle behavior.
• Develop simulation scenarios, testing infrastructure, metrics, and regression tests to validate autonomy behavior before deployment.
• Investigate field issues and edge cases, reproduce failures, identify root causes, and implement robust production solutions.
• Support deployment and validation of autonomous vehicles at customer facilities, translating real-world observations into improvements across the autonomy stack.
• Collaborate closely with engineers in Planning, Controls, Perception, Localization, Vehicle Infrastructure, Hardware, QA, and Operations.
• Participate in architecture discussions, code reviews, technical design, and continuous improvement of Cyngn’s autonomy software.

Qualifications

• BS, MS, or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience developing software for robotics, autonomous vehicles, or other autonomous systems.
• Strong proficiency in modern C++ and working proficiency in Python.
• Hands-on experience developing, testing, and deploying software on real robotic systems.
• Experience with ROS/ROS2 or comparable robotics middleware.
• Working knowledge of core robotics concepts such as coordinate frames, kinematics, state estimation, motion planning, feedback control, and sensor integration.
• Strong systems-level understanding of how autonomy software components interact with each other and with vehicle hardware.
• Experience debugging complex robotic systems where failures may span multiple software modules or hardware interfaces.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including algorithms, data structures, software architecture, testing, and code review.
• Strong communication and problem-solving skills and the ability to work effectively across multiple engineering disciplines.

Bonus Qualifications

• Technical depth in at least one area of robotics or autonomous systems, such as:
• • Behavior and decision-making
  • Motion planning
  • Vehicle or motion control
• Experience developing autonomous vehicles, mobile robots, industrial robots, or similar systems.
• Experience with behavior trees, state machines, or other architectures for autonomous decision-making.
• Experience with search-based or sampling-based motion planning techniques such as A*, Hybrid A*, RRT, or related algorithms.
• Experience with feedback control, vehicle dynamics, trajectory tracking, MPC, or optimization-based control.
• Experience with simulation environments and automated autonomy testing.
• Experience integrating sensors, actuators, drive-by-wire systems, or embedded/real-time components.
• Experience developing tooling, metrics, and CI/CD infrastructure for robotic systems.
• Familiarity with Linux, Git, Docker, CMake, and modern software development workflows.
• Experience taking robotics functionality from prototype through validation and production deployment.

Benefits & Perks

• Health benefits (Medical, Dental, Vision) through Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, and Guardian, with multiple plan tiers to choose from
• Ancillary benefits including accident, critical illness, and hospital indemnity plans (Voya)
• Company-paid basic life insurance, plus voluntary (supplemental) life for you and your dependents
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• HSA and FSA (Health & Dependent Daycare)
• Employee Assistance Program
• 1:1 Health Concierge
• Company 401(k)
• Commuter Benefits
• Flexible PTO policy
• Paid Parental Leave
• Daily lunches for in-office employees and fully-stocked kitchen with snacks and beverages

Equal Opportunity Employer

Cyngn is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, genetic information, marital status, familial status, military or veteran status, citizenship status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including recruitment, hiring, compensation, benefits, training, promotion, discipline, and termination.

If you require accommodation during the application or interview process due to a disability, please let us know and we will work with you to provide reasonable accommodation