Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Audio Perception

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.

The Audio Perception team focuses on leveraging audio to provide sufficient scene understanding and driving behavior that are uniquely captured by audio. The team owns audio-related signals and supports applications across all product areas, improving key metrics like safety, rider comfort and cost. We strive to fulfill new product requests while preserving performance on existing applications as we rapidly scale to new cities.

In this hybrid role, you will report to a Technical Lead Manager.

You will:

• Support new product requests end-to-end, from problem definition to a solution that is integrated in the onboard driving system.


• Streamline the model development and evaluation stack for rapid adaptation to new tasks and data.


• Establish and maintain a sustainable model stack to facilitate Waymo’s scaling across multiple platforms and cities.

You have:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a similar discipline, or an equivalent amount of deep learning experience.


• 5+ years of experience in Machine Learning, with a strong focus on deep learning for perception tasks.


• Deep understanding of state-of-the-art ML techniques, especially those related to multi-class classification, regression, model adaptation and scarce data.


• Proficiency in at least one deep learning framework (e.g. TensorFlow, PyTorch, JAX).


• Proficiency in C++ and Python.

We prefer:

• Master’s degree or Ph.D in Computer Science or a similar discipline, or an equivalent amount of deep learning experience.


• Experience in audio modeling or digital signal processing.


• Familiarity with multi-modal systems and/or foundation models.


• Experience implementing infrastructure to support model development (e.g. data processing modules).


• Experience in optimizing ML models for on-device deployment and real-time performance.


• Background in autonomous driving or robotics.


• Familiarity with SQL.

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

$204,000—$259,000 USD