Our Mission at Scythe

Humanity has lost touch with nature - we’ve traded dirt and trees for asphalt, and we rely on loud, polluting, gas-powered machines to care for our limited natural spaces.
 
Scythe is forging a new future by building intelligent, all-electric machines that unlock a new superpower: the ability to care for the outdoors pollution-free at enormous scale. From today’s first steps in landscape maintenance to full-fledged re-terraforming in the future, Scythe is pioneering autonomous machinery that supports the ingenuity of humans, multiplying our power to nurture our planet.
 
At Scythe, you’ll work with a team of world-class experts in everything from computer vision to mechanical engineering, pushing the limits of possibility and growing by overcoming hurdles along the way. 
 
The world needs what we’re building—come join us in making it a reality.

Motion Planning at Scythe

At Scythe, we're bringing an industry-leading autonomous battery-powered mower to market that runs on a powerful single-board computer with a custom software stack running everything from sensor interaction, to autonomy, to the cloud and user interactions. As a Motion Planning Engineer, you’ll work together with other engineers from across the company to understand and solve the many motion planning problems required to navigate and mow the complex physical environments in which our autonomous robots operate. This includes, for example, operating safely in environments shared with humans and animals, as well as navigating efficiently around obstacles such as trees, poles, mulch beds, bushes, etc.

You'll play a key role in developing first-of-its-kind lawnmower-specific planning algorithms to get the job done well while being gentle to the turf being mowed and efficient for landscapers. We expect you to be broadly experienced in wheeled robot motion planning to be able to “see around corners”, to thrive in supporting a fast-paced autonomy team while self-managing your engineering contributions, and to be a collaborative, low-ego teammate who helps Scythe realize its big mission.

What you’ll do at Scythe  

  • Develop, deploy, and test safe and novel algorithms for navigation decision-making, coverage planning, path planning, trajectory generation, and collision detection
  • Write high-quality, performant, and safe code that will run on the robot
  • Work with the testing team to find the best ways to test all things motion planning in the field
  • Work with other internal autonomy teams (localization, perception, controls) to make sure your work is in sync with company-wide autonomy goals

What you know well

  • Experience designing, developing, testing, and deploying product-ready software
  • Proficiency in a compiled programming language such as C++, Rust, or Go, and their development in large codebases. We use Rust for most of our codebase, so you must be open to learning it and adopting it for everyday use
  • Experience in developing, deploying, and testing the components of planning systems for wheeled robots. Specifically in optimization, graph search, sampling-based search, high-level decision-making, coverage planning, and collision detection
  • Experience with unit and integration testing, continuous integration, simulation-based testing
  • Developing algorithms running in real-time in compute-constrained hardware
  • Debugging real-time complex systems and finding the root cause
  • Mathematical fundamentals in geometry, linear algebra, probability theory, and numerical optimization

What you’ve maybe done

  • Made contributions to other autonomy subsystems: localization, perception, controls
  • Spent significant time with real field robots, sensors, and physical hardware
  • Tested and tuned planning algorithms in simulation and real-world environments
  • Worked in multi-robot collaboration and planning

Why Scythe?

  • Scythe is an early-stage but well-capitalized startup. Have a huge impact alongside an awesome team of experts shipping something the world has never before seen
  • Competitive salary and equity compensation
  • Fully-sponsored medical, vision, and dental insurance, including 75% funded dependent coverage
  • 401(k) retirement plan (non-matching today)
  • Headquarters near beautiful Boulder, CO. Enjoy the bounties of nature and open spaces close to home with mountain biking, hiking, skiing and more.
  • Satellite offices in Austin, TX and Vero Beach, FL 
  • Flexible paid time-off and remote work to let you do your best work where and when you want
  • Highly collaborative learning culture where personal freedom, growth, and responsibility are valued
  • An opportunity to have an incredible positive impact on the world

Scythe is a total compensation company, which provides employees a comprehensive salary, equity, and benefit package. However, only the minimum salary amounts are listed here. Scythe carefully considers a wide range of compensation factors, including education, years of experience, competencies and other relevant business considerations. These considerations can cause your compensation to vary along with your compensation mode preferences. The Motion Planning Engineer position has an expected minimum annual cash salary of $140,000. The actual pay may be higher depending on your skills, qualifications, and experience. Equity and benefits packages are NOT included in this estimate. Please note that this information is provided for those hired in Colorado only, and this role is open to candidates outside of Colorado as well.

Scythe is an Equal Opportunity employer committed to diversity in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status or any other factor protected by applicable local, state or federal laws.

Apply for this Job

* Required
resume chosen  
Dropbox Google Drive
(File types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf)
Cancel

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Scythe Robotics’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Form CC-305

OMB Control Number 1250-0005

Expires 05/31/2023

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor required by law to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We are also required to measure our progress toward having at least 7% of our workforce be individuals with disabilities. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had a disability. Because a person may become disabled at any time, we ask all of our employees to update their information at least every five years.

Identifying yourself as an individual with a disability is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer will be maintained confidentially and not be seen by selecting officials or anyone else involved in making personnel decisions. Completing the form will not negatively impact you in any way, regardless of whether you have self-identified in the past. For more information about this form or the equal employment obligations of federal contractors under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

You are considered to have a disability if you have a physical or mental impairment or medical condition that substantially limits a major life activity, or if you have a history or record of such an impairment or medical condition.

Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Autism
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, or HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or hard of hearing
  • Depression or anxiety
  • Diabetes
  • Epilepsy
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, or irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual disability
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Nervous system condition for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, or Multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Psychiatric condition, for example, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, or major depression

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.