Senior Behavior Planning Engineer

Who We Are

Gatik is in the business of autonomous freight, and that business is already on the road.

Every day, Gatik’s autonomous trucks move freight for Fortune 50 retailers, grocers and consumer brands across Texas, Arizona, Arkansas and Canada, connecting distribution centers and stores and keeping goods moving. At the heart of it all is the Gatik Driver™, our proprietary Level 4 autonomous driving system, powered by scalable, interpretable AI and engineered to deliver safe, reliable, high-frequency freight operations.

Gatik’s momentum is real. With more than $600 million in contracted revenue and $200 million raised in our August 2026 Series D round, Gatik has taken one of the toughest challenges in autonomous technology and turned it into a proven commercial business.

And the market is paying attention. In 2026, Gatik earned a place on Forbes' America's Best Startup Employers list, and the Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies. The Gatik Driver™ won an Edison Award for Advancements in Autonomous Driving, and Inc. named our Co-founder and Chief Engineer, Apeksha Kumavat, to its Female Founders 500 list.

There's a lot more road ahead, and some of the brightest, most driven minds in autonomous technology are building the next chapter at Gatik. We're taking on hard engineering problems, pushing the limits of what's possible and building on a commercial foundation that's already proven itself in the real world with some of the biggest companies in the world, like PepsiCo and Loblaw. If you're ambitious, love solving problems that matter and want to see your work make a real difference, you'll find plenty to get excited about here.

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, Gatik has grown into a commercial force in autonomous freight, operating trucks daily in live customer networks across the United States and Canada. We're headquartered in Santa Clara, California, but our impact is felt on the roads and in the supply chains that keep essential goods moving for some of the biggest companies in North America.

Our trucks do some of the most demanding work in freight, running high-frequency, time-sensitive routes between distribution centers and stores, where reliability matters every single day. For our customers, that means more capacity, better service and products arriving where they need to be, when they need to be there.

Behind it all is AI-first technology built from the ground up for autonomous trucking, capable of navigating highways and surface streets and tackling the complexity of real-world logistics at scale.

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

Notable News

For the latest company news, visit the Gatik newsroom.

Recent media coverage:

• TechCrunch: Self-driving truck startup Gatik raises $200M following PepsiCo deal
• Reuters: Gatik secures $200 million in funding as autonomous freight market accelerates
• Bloomberg: Driverless Trucks Can Save Lives on America's Roads
• PepsiCo website: PepsiCo and Gatik announce multi-year agreement to deploy autonomous freight in North America
• Wall Street Journal: Driverless Trucks Are Here - and They’re Delivering Bags of Doritos
• CBS News: Pepsi deploys self-driving delivery trucks
• Bloomberg: Autonomous Trucking Firm Gatik Inks Contracts Worth $600 Million
• Forbes: Hundreds’ Of Gatik Robot Delivery Trucks Headed For U.S. Roads
• CNBC-TV18: No more test runs: Gatik says driverless trucks are now a real, money-making business
• Forbes: Gatik And Loblaw Announce Largest Commercial Deployment Of AV Trucks

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.

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