Yajia Zhang
Engineer at Rivian
Sunnyvale, California, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolYajia Zhang is an experienced robotics and autonomous driving engineer with eight years building planning and backend systems for leading AV platforms. Currently at Rivian after senior roles at XPENG, Cruise, and Baidu USA, she has deep practical expertise in trajectory generation, path decision-making, and restructuring core planning modules to improve efficiency and safety. Her open-source contributions to the high-profile Apollo autonomous driving platform demonstrate an ability to integrate new functionality cleanly into complex existing systems. With a PhD-level background in computer science from Indiana University Bloomington and early research experience at Bosch, she blends rigorous research instincts with production-grade engineering. Colleagues describe her as a problem-solver who thrives on untangling legacy code and turning algorithmic ideas into robust, deployable components.
8 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Computer Science, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Computer Science at Indiana University BloomingtonBachelor of Science (B.S.) Software Engineering, Bachelor of Science (B.S.) Software Engineering at Nankai University
Chinese, English
Github Skills (6)
c-language10
planning10
cprogramming-language10
motion-planning10
autonomous-driving10
algorithms9
Programming languages (1)
Github contributions (5)
ApolloAuto/apollo
Jul 2017 - Jul 2019
An open autonomous driving platform
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:947 commits, 588 PRs, 316 pushes in 1 year 11 months
Contributions summary:Yajia's commits primarily focus on the development of core planning components, including restructuring existing code and implementing new functionalities. The user added methods to solve problems within the planning module. Specific contributions involve the implementation of features related to trajectory generation, path decision-making, and a focus on enhancing the efficiency of the system. The commits demonstrate proficiency in interacting with existing systems within the Apollo autonomous driving platform.
autonomousmachine-learningautonomyautonomous-drivingapollo
YajiaZhang/apollo
Sep 2017 - Sep 2018
An open autonomous driving platform
Contributions:2 PRs, 411 pushes, 5 branches in 11 months
autonomousmachine-learningautonomous-drivingmavlinkdriving
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