Staff Software Engineer, Mission Planning at Kodiak
Mountain View, CA
$200,000–$250,000
Jul 20, 2026
Mountain View, CA
Jul 22, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A staff-level engineering role focused on building and architecting mission planning and prediction systems for autonomous semi-trucks operating on public roads. The work centers on motion planning, trajectory optimization, and behavioral prediction for other road actors, with integration across perception, controls, and simulation teams. The role also carries a technical leadership dimension, including mentoring engineers and shaping the long-term planning roadmap. Suited to engineers with deep production robotics experience and strong C++ skills.
Staff level · 6+ years · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA · Full-time
Pay in the description: $200,000–$250,000
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 560 people in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 210–730
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $217,796 (middle half $177,469–$231,052). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
The compensation range of $200,000–$250,000 is stated as base salary only and reflects the SF/Silicon Valley location; total compensation also includes equity and annual bonuses.
The role is explicitly titled 'Staff Software Engineer' and the requirements support that band: cross-team technical leadership, architecture ownership, and mentoring of both junior and senior engineers are all called out as core duties.
'Robotics software' is listed as a required domain of experience ('6+ years of experience developing production-level robotics software') rather than a named tool; it is included here as the closest concrete descriptor of the required production experience.
Motion planning, trajectory optimization, and graph theory are listed under 'What you'll bring' with the word 'Expertise', treating them as hard gates.
Machine learning is required in the sense that the role explicitly calls for integrating ML models and developing prediction models; it appears in the required responsibilities section.
Driverless AV deployment experience, simulation frameworks, and data-driven development workflows appear under 'Bonus points if you have' and are marked as preferred.
No degree requirement is stated anywhere in the posting.
The posting notes that some roles may require export-license scrutiny or U.S. person/citizenship verification due to DoD work, but no formal security clearance is listed as a hard gate for this specific role.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): motion planning, trajectory optimization.
Read the full posting
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