Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Robotics
This role focuses on designing and optimizing machine learning systems for Waymo’s autonomous driving stack, bridging perception, decision-making, and real-time execution in complex, high-stakes environments. You’ll lead the development of advanced models that handle edge cases across diverse driving scenarios, leveraging billions of miles of simulated and real-world data.
Skills required
About this role
Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the world's most trusted driver. Since its start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has focused on building the Waymo Driver—The World's Most Experienced Driver™—to improve access to mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes. The Waymo Driver powers Waymo’s fully autonomous ride-hail service and can also be applied to a range of vehicle platforms and product use cases. The Waymo Driver has provided over ten million rider-only trips, enabled by its experience autonomously driving over 100 million miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 15+ U.S. states.
Software Engineering builds the brains of Waymo's fully autonomous driving technology. Our software allows the Waymo Driver to perceive the world around it, make the right decision for every situation, and deliver people safely to their destinations. We think deeply and solve complex technical challenges in areas like robotics, perception, decision-making and deep learning, while collaborating with hardware and systems engineers. If you’re a software engineer or researcher who’s curious and passionate about Level 4 autonomous driving, we'd like to meet you.
The Sensor Foundations Team’s purpose is to provide cleaned-up sensor data through highly optimized APIs to Perception models, to abstract sensor hardware differences where possible, and to provide low-level Perception signals either through algorithms or machine learning. Projects on our team typically require a diverse skill set, including robotics, system integration, code optimization, and machine learning. We have a good understanding of the hardware (both sensors and compute) and the overall Perception system. For this role, we are looking for a strong Software Engineer with robotics and machine learning experience, who will help us to accelerate the transition of low-level Perception tasks from algorithms to machine learning.
This role follows a hybrid work schedule and reports to the Technical Lead Manager of the Sensor Foundations Team.
You will:
- Transition low-level Perception tasks from algorithms to machine learning
- Work on system integration and optimization
- Evaluate task-level and system-level quality, developing new metrics as needed
You have:
- Bachelors in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Robotics, or similar technical field of study
- 5+ years of industry experience
- Strong C/C++ skills
- Proficiency with Python
- Experience with Computer Vision and Machine Learning
- Experience with System Integration
We prefer:
- Masters or PhD Degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning, or a similar discipline
- Experience with sensor data processing (Lidar, camera, or radar)
- Experience in the AV industry
The expected base salary range for this full-time position across US locations is listed below. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors, including exact work location, experience, relevant training and education, and skill level. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the role location or, if the role can be performed remote, the specific salary range for your preferred location, during the hiring process.
Waymo employees are also eligible to participate in Waymo’s discretionary annual bonus program, equity incentive plan, and generous Company benefits program, subject to eligibility requirements.
Salary Range
$213,000—$263,000 USD
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