Principal Planning Engineer (Autonomous Vehicle)

About Grab and Our Workplace

Grab is Southeast Asia's leading superapp. From getting your favourite meals delivered to helping you manage your finances and getting around town hassle-free, we've got your back with everything. In Grab, purpose gives us joy and habits build excellence, while harnessing the power of Technology and AI to deliver the mission of driving Southeast Asia forward by economically empowering everyone, with heart, hunger, honour, and humility.

Get to Know the Team

Our team develops production-grade robotics and autonomy capabilities for the uniquely complex, unstructured urban environments of Southeast Asia. We are ambitious and pragmatic: advancing perception, planning, and control step by step, with safety evidence as the gate for every milestone. We focus on building robust system capabilities, scaling with uncompromised quality, and collaborating with industry leaders while investing in in-house expertise where it differentiates us.

We are a senior, hands-on engineering group that prizes operational excellence, clear interfaces, and reproducible pipelines.

Get to Know the Role

As the Principal Planning Engineer, you will be the technical anchor and visionary for motion planning and control. You will architect, design, and deliver the systems that allow autonomous platforms to navigate safely, smoothly, and predictably in complex urban environments. This is a hands-on role with broad technical ownership, setting direction and standards for planning and control while driving the development of production-grade solutions.

You will report to the Head of Engineering and will contribute directly to both technical and strategic leadership. This is a fully onsite role at Grab Singapore's One North office.

The Critical Tasks You Will Perform

Technical Leadership & Strategy

• Own the technical vision and roadmap for motion planning and control, from behavioral planning through trajectory generation and vehicle actuation.
• Architect a scalable, production-grade planning and control stack tailored to the challenges of Southeast Asian environments.
• Lead technical design reviews and set the standard for developing verifiable and safety-critical software, regardless of the underlying methodology.

Hands-on Development & Implementation

• Lead development of planning algorithms for real-time, online replanning, including behavior selection, constrained optimization, trajectory generation, and interaction-aware motion planning.
• Develop robust control algorithms to ensure vehicle stability, comfort, and safety under real-world constraints.
• Develop high-fidelity simulation and validation frameworks to rigorously test and harden the planning and control modules.
• Own the lifecycle of algorithms: specification, design, implementation, testing (simulation, SIL/HIL), and deployment.

Mentorship & Collaboration

• Mentor senior engineers; set the bar for design reviews, experimentation hygiene, and operational excellence.
• Partner with technical anchors in Perception, Prediction, Mapping, and Vehicle Integration to deliver a cohesive autonomy stack.
• Translate advances in planning and control into robust, production-grade systems.

What Essential Skills You Will Need

Essential Skills

• 8+ years of experience in robotics, with a focus on motion planning, trajectory optimization, or control for autonomous systems.
• Proven experience designing, building, and shipping production-grade planning and/or control systems for autonomy, ADAS, or complex robotics.
• Expert-level proficiency in modern C++ (C++17+) and Python for real-time, resource-constrained applications.
• 8+ years of experience in several of: trajectory generation, model predictive control (MPC), behavior planning, interaction-aware planning, or vehicle dynamics modeling.
• Deep expertise in decision-making under uncertainty, with experience leveraging probabilistic inputs from perception and prediction systems.
• Hands-on experience with simulation frameworks, SIL/HIL testing, and validation of safety-critical systems.
• Demonstrated leadership in architecture and design of complex, safety-critical software systems.
• BS in CS, EE, Robotics, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Skills

• 3+ years of experience with machine learning approaches to planning or behavior modeling (e.g., imitation learning, reinforcement learning, or hybrid systems).
• Experience with interfaces across the autonomy stack (planning, perception, prediction, control, vehicle integration).
• Knowledge of vehicle actuation systems, drive-by-wire, and dynamics constraints.
• Experience with safety frameworks (e.g., ISO 26262, SOTIF) and evidence-driven readiness gates.
• Familiarity with large-scale simulation, scenario-based testing, and performance benchmarking.
• Publications or patents in top-tier robotics or control venues (e.g., ICRA, IROS, RSS, CoRL).

Life at Grab

We care about your well-being at Grab, here are some of the global benefits we offer:

• We have your back with Term Life Insurance and comprehensive Medical Insurance.
• With GrabFlex, create a benefits package that suits your needs and aspirations.
• Celebrate moments that matter in life with loved ones through Parental and Birthday leave, and give back to your communities through Love-all-Serve-all (LASA) volunteering leave
• We have a confidential Grabber Assistance Programme to guide and uplift you and your loved ones through life's challenges.
• Balancing personal commitments and life's demands are made easier with our FlexWork arrangements such as differentiated hours

What We Stand For at Grab

We are committed to building an inclusive and equitable workplace that enables diverse Grabbers to grow and perform at their best. As an equal opportunity employer, we consider all candidates fairly and equally regardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, family commitments, physical and mental impairments or disabilities, and other attributes that make them unique.