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Zoox1K–5K employees

Software Engineer - Mission Planning

Foster City, CA$163,000 – $263,000Posted 259 days ago

Immigration summary

Visa sponsorship

Highly likelyHigh confidence

This employer sponsors this kind of work repeatedly, and is still filing this year.

321 recent H-1B filings · 104 similar-role filings

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Green card sponsorship

Strong historyHigh confidence

This employer has recently sponsored green cards at scale.

93 recent certified PERM filings · 54 similar-role filings

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Job description

The Mission Planner team at Zoox is responsible for creating high-level routes for our autonomous vehicles to transport passengers to their destinations. You will work closely with our Cloud Services team to facilitate pick-up and drop-off requests, along with live traffic data among other inputs. You will also integrate closely with the decision-making and trajectory planning and controls teams to allow dynamic planning. This team will enable the core ability for our vehicles to choose the best routes through cities and adapt in real-time.    We are seeking an engineer who is passionate about tackling the complexities of mission planning in dynamic cities. You should be driven to contribute innovative solutions to architecture and design and take responsibility for significant software components. If you like to work close to the robot platform and enjoy experiencing your developed software in the robot, we would like to hear from you.

In this role, you will:

  • Develop mission planner algorithms, including graph search and integration with behavioral planning
  • Integrate and test your developed applications in the robot, learn and make improvements. 
  • Work collaboratively with passionate team members to support the integration of software components from all teams throughout Zoox.
  • Set the short and long term technical direction for the team and collaborate on the broader company-wide directions 
  • Coordinate cross-functional initiatives with other teams across Mission Planning, Behavioral Planning and Cloud Services.
  • Qualifications

  • BS/MS in Computer Science, Robotics, or a related field and 2+ years of industry experience
  • Programming skills in C++
  • Understanding and experience with a variety of graph search techniques (A*, D*, Dijkstra …)
  • Model real-world problems using Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) or related frameworks
  • Develop scalable solutions for sequential decision-making under uncertainty and constraints
  • Demonstrated ability to write code for a shipped product (commercial robotics, drones, consumer devices, automotive)
  • Bonus Qualifications

  • PhD in computer science or related field
  • Experience with autonomous robots
  • About Zoox

    Zoox is developing the first ground-up, fully autonomous vehicle fleet and the supporting ecosystem required to bring this technology to market. Sitting at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and design, Zoox aims to provide the next generation of mobility-as-a-service in urban environments. We’re looking for top talent that shares our passion and wants to be part of a fast-moving and highly execution-oriented team.
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    Accommodations

    If you need an accommodation to participate in the application or interview process please reach out to accommodations@zoox.com or your assigned recruiter.
    A Final Note:You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Zoox, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.

    Sponsorship evidence

    Why Openbound reached the conclusions above.

    Visa sponsorship evidence

    Current posting

    Silent on sponsorship

    Employer H-1B history

    321
    recent certified H-1B filings
    188
    new-hire petitions
    104
    filings for similar roles
    347
    so far in FY2026

    Filed titles like this role: software engineer · software development engineer

    More evidence details
    • 104 certified H-1B filings for this same role, 188 new-hire petitions across the employer, and 225 new hires already this year
    • 104 certified H-1B filings for this same role
    • 321 recent certified H-1B filings across the employer
    • Still filing this year — 347 filings in FY2026
    • 74 USCIS H-1B new-employment approvals, counted separately from LCA filings
    • Strong filing activity in CA
    • 334 further USCIS approvals for extensions or transfers
    • The posting says nothing about sponsorship either way

    Strong filing activity in CA.

    Green card sponsorship evidence

    Employer PERM history

    93
    recent certified PERM filings
    54
    filings for similar roles
    92
    filings in this location
    Certified PERM filings by fiscal year
    202347
    202440
    2025143
    202674YTD

    Filing history reflects past employer behavior; it isn't a promise for this opening.

    All open roles at Zoox
    How Openbound evaluates sponsorship

    Visa history uses official U.S. Department of Labor H-1B LCA disclosure data and USCIS H-1B petition history. Green card history uses DOL PERM disclosure data. Each is read for the employer as a whole, for roles like this one, and for this location, weighted toward the most recent fiscal years.

    An employer is matched to its filing entities by verified legal name and reviewed aliases; a match is never made on a name resemblance alone. Where no verified entity can be matched, the page says so and draws no conclusion from the absence. 258 filing titles were examined for this employer.

    What this posting states outranks history in both directions, and an employer's published policy outranks past filings. Filing history reflects past behavior; it is not a promise of sponsorship for this opening, and none of this is legal advice.