Kodiak AI, Inc. (Nasdaq: KDK), founded in 2018, is a leader in Physical AI, developing driverless technology that powers machines that move. Its Kodiak Driver is a vehicle-agnostic autonomous driving system that combines AI-powered software with modular hardware. Today it operates in long-haul trucking, industrial trucking, and defense. In 2024, Kodiak launched commercial Driver-as-a-Service operations with no one in the cab, and plans to launch driverless long-haul service between Dallas and Houston by the end of 2026.
Kodiak has partnered with many of the biggest names in freight, including Bosch for scaled hardware production, AWS, and leading customers including Atlas Energy Solutions, IKEA, Bridgestone, Werner Enterprises, C.R. England, Roehl Transport, and General Dynamics Land Systems.
We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to build infrastructure, tools, and systems that support our Planning team to develop, debug, evaluate, and deploy autonomy software faster and more safely.
You are part of the Planning team with a focus on understanding workflows and creating infrastructure that improves engineering velocity, software quality, system performance, and test coverage. You will develop the internal tools, libraries, workflows, metrics, and evaluation systems that support behavior and motion planning development.
This is a great role for a strong generalist engineer who enjoys building systems that other engineers work with on a daily basis. This role is especially well-suited for someone who enjoys multiplying the effectiveness of other engineers and wants broad technical impact.
What You'll Do- Build tools and infrastructure that accelerate Planning development.
- Improve testing, debugging, metrics, and evaluation workflows.
- Expose actionable insights from logs, simulation, and real-world autonomy data.
- Build infrastructure that supports safety case development and test coverage analysis.
- Improve internal libraries, developer workflows, and Planning observability.
- Optimize performance, maintainability, and reliability of Planning software.
- Partner closely with Planning engineers to identify bottlenecks and improve development velocity.
- Design reusable systems and abstractions used across the Planning team.
- Lead infrastructure projects with broad team-wide impact.
What We're Looking For- Strong software engineering background with 5+ years experience with C++ performance optimization and large-scale software systems, ideally with autonomy or robotics systems.
- Experience building tools, libraries, frameworks, infrastructure, or developer workflows.
- Ability to write clean, maintainable, high-performance code.
- Experience with metrics, logs, testing, debugging tools, simulation, or data-driven evaluation.
- Strong systems thinking and ability to understand complex engineering workflows.
- Interest in autonomy, robotics, or planning systems.
- Strong collaboration skills and interest to build tools that make other engineers more effective.
Strong Plus- Experience building safety-case tooling or test coverage infrastructure.
- Experience with large-scale autonomy metrics and evaluation systems.
The pay range listed below reflects the base salary
in our SF/Silicon Valley location, across several internal levels. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors including: work location, experience, relevant training, education, skill level and performance during interview. Total compensation at Kodiak includes base pay, equity, bonus and a competitive benefits package
California Pay Range
$180,000-$215,000 USD
At Kodiak, we strive to build a diverse community working towards our common company goals in a safe and collaborative environment where harassment of any kind is strictly prohibited. Kodiak is committed to equal opportunity employment regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable law.
In alignment with its business operations, Kodiak adheres to all relevant statutes, regulations, and administrative prerequisites. Accordingly, roles that carry more sensitive requirements may be limited to candidates that can satisfy additional scrutiny and eligibility for such positions may hinge on verification of a candidate's residence, U.S. person status, and/or citizenship status. Should the position require, and Kodiak determines that a candidate's residence, U.S. person status, and/or citizenship status necessitate an export license, bar the candidate from the position, or otherwise fall under national security-related restrictions, Kodiak will consider the candidate for alternative positions unaffected by such restrictions, under terms and conditions set forth at Kodiak's sole discretion, or, as an alternative, opt not to proceed with the candidate's application. If applicable, Kodiak may provide visa sponsorship for eligible candidates.
We use a third-party AI tool (Endorsed) to assist in the initial screening of applications. As part of the evaluation process, we provide Endorsed with job requirements and candidate-submitted applications. Final hiring decisions are made by our human recruitment team, and no automated system makes the ultimate decision regarding hiring. Certain features of the platform may qualify it as an Automated Employment Decision Tool (AEDT) under applicable regulations. We began using Endorsed on January 1, 2026. You can review the independent bias audit report covering our use of Endorsed [here]( By submitting your application, you acknowledge that your application may be processed by AI systems as part of the screening and selection process. If you have any questions or would like to request a separate review of your application, please contact with "Separate Review Request" in the email subject line.
