Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Perception

Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the 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 One, a fully autonomous ride-hailing service, and can also be applied to a range of vehicle platforms and product use cases. The Waymo Driver has provided over one million rider-only trips, enabled by its experience autonomously driving tens of millions of miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 13+ U.S. states.

We've successfully deployed self-driving cars; now the focus is scaling. This means larger models trained on more data for better generalization. But it's not just about size; we need to automate more and optimize resources.

In this role, you'll shape our tech roadmap by aligning product needs with technology development, balancing current solutions with future innovations. You'll build active learning and ML-aided labeling workflows to tackle rare, "longtail" issues—critical when driving millions of miles daily. As models evolve, so do interfaces and data demands. You'll be key in aligning product vision with these new technology designs.

You'll partner closely with Product and Engineering teams, especially those focused on data and automation. Your responsibilities include supporting freeway expansion, streamlining evaluations, conducting deep dives, improving communication with partners, redefining interfaces for dense perception tasks, and boosting labeling efficiency. You'll also drive our data flywheel and autonomous learning initiatives. We're at the start of an exponential scaling curve, with each new magnitude bringing unique challenges and continuous tech evolution. This role offers significant growth opportunities, including mentoring to foster internal advancement.

You will:

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  Collaborate with Perception leads to align short- and long-term product needs with technology investments.



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  Deeply understand technology capabilities and roadmaps to ensure alignment with product requirements and guide product roadmap development.



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  Partner with Perception leads to define problems, design interfaces, and establish metrics and evaluation methodologies.



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  Work with Perception and Engineering teams to develop active learning loops and model-aided human labeling workflows, optimizing efficiency and value.



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  Drive the automation of Perception model evaluation, verification, and production monitoring with Engineering partners.



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  Accelerate collaboration with Product and Engineering teams to solve complex product problems leveraging deep technical knowledge.

You have:

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  Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.



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  6+ years of experience developing and deploying ML-driven CV/Perception systems, and 3+ years of experience working on Perception systems for ADVs.



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  3+ years of experience in a technical leadership role, collaborating with product teams and setting technical directions in large ML Engineering organizations.



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  3+ years of experience developing and taking ML systems to production, and monitoring and maintaining them in production.



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  Proficiency in C++, Python, and modern deep learning toolkits like PyTorch or JAX.



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  Strong communication skills, a passion to make a business impact, and a drive for engineering excellence.

We prefer:

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  Experience developing ML-aided human labeling workflows.



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  Experience developing and productizing large-scale vision, video, or multi-modal foundation models.



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  Familiarity with end-to-end models and their development challenges.



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  Agility in a fast-paced environment.

In this hybrid role, you will report to the Engineering Director in Perception

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

$281,000—$356,000 USD