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Senior Behavior Planning Engineer at Gatik AI · Katori

Who we are

Gatik, the leader in autonomous middle-mile logistics, is revolutionizing the B2B supply chain with its autonomous transportation-as-a-service (ATaaS) solution and prioritizing safe, consistent deliveries while streamlining freight movement by reducing congestion. The company focuses on short-haul, B2B logistics for Fortune 500 retailers and in 2021 launched the world’s first fully driverless commercial transportation service with Walmart. Gatik's Class 3-7 autonomous trucks are commercially deployed across major markets, including Texas, Arkansas, and Ontario, Canada, driving innovation in freight transportation.

The company's proprietary Level 4 autonomous technology, Gatik Carrier™, is custom-built to transport freight safely and efficiently between pick-up and drop-off locations on the middle mile. With robust capabilities in both highway and urban environments, Gatik Carrier™ serves as an all-encompassing solution that integrates advanced software and hardware powering the fleet, facilitating effortless integration into customers' logistics operations.

About the role

We’re seeking Senior or Staff Engineers to help build the core behavior planning system for autonomous vehicles, enabling safe and intelligent decision-making. The role involves designing behavior tree architectures, developing robust C++ infrastructure, collaborating across autonomy teams, evaluating planner performance, and providing technical leadership within the team.

This role is onsite 5 days a week at our Santa Clara, CA office!

What you'll do

Design, implement, and maintain the core behavior planning system for autonomous vehicles, enabling intelligent, interpretable, and safe decision-making in complex real-world scenarios.
Develop and extend behavior tree architectures for hierarchical decision logic, including support for mission planning, tactical maneuvers, and contingency handling.
Collaborate closely with the motion planning, prediction, and control teams to ensure seamless transitions from high-level decisions to executable trajectories.
Build and optimize C++-based software infrastructure for behavior planning, including tools for simulation, debugging, visualization, and closed-loop testing.
Evaluate planner performance in diverse real-world and simulated environments; identify failure modes and develop strategies to improve robustness and generalization.
Participate in design reviews and system integration across the full autonomy stack.
Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and architectural guidance for junior team members.

What we're looking for

Ph.D. with 3+ years or Master’s with 5+ years of industry experience in robotics, autonomous systems, or behavior planning.
Proven experience in behavior planning, including use of behavior trees, finite state machines, or rule-based planners in autonomous driving or robotics applications.
Strong proficiency in C++ with a deep understanding of performance, memory management, and software architecture in production systems.
Solid understanding of motion planning and prediction interfaces, with experience building real-time, safety-critical systems.
Knowledge of diffusion models and/or Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models is a strong plus.
Strong debugging, system thinking, and collaborative communication skills.

Salary Range - $180,000- $260,000

More about Gatik

Founded in 2017 by experts in autonomous vehicle technology, Gatik has rapidly expanded its presence to Mountain View, Dallas-Fort Worth, Arkansas, and Toronto. As the first and only company to achieve fully driverless middle-mile commercial deliveries, Gatik holds a unique and defensible position in the AV industry, with a clear trajectory toward sustainable growth and profitability.

We have delivered complete, proprietary AV technology - an integration of software and hardware - to enable earlier successes for our clients in constrained Level 4 autonomy. By choosing the middle mile – with defined point-to-point delivery, we have simplified some of the more complex AV challenges, enabling us to achieve full autonomy ahead of competitors. Given extensive knowledge of Gatik’s well-defined, fixed route ODDs and hybrid architecture, we are able to hyper-optimize our models with exponentially less data, establish gate-keeping mechanisms to maintain explainability, and ensure continued safety of the system for unmanned operations.

Visit us at Gatik for more company information and Careers at Gatik for more open roles.

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Taking care of our team

At Gatik, we connect people of extraordinary talent and experience to an opportunity to create a more resilient supply chain and contribute to our environment’s sustainability. We are diverse in our backgrounds and perspectives yet united by a bold vision and shared commitment to our values. Our culture emphasizes the importance of collaboration, respect and agility.

We at Gatik strive to create a diverse and inclusive environment where everyone feels they have opportunities to succeed and grow because we know that together we can do great things. We are committed to an inclusive and diverse team. We do not discriminate based on race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, marital status or any legally protected status.

Senior Behavior Planning Engineer