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 Onboard Software team develops the critical software and machine learning models that power the Waymo Driver. Our systems enable the vehicle to perceive its surroundings, make safe driving decisions, and transport people to their destinations. With Waymo's fleet driving millions of miles every week, we operate at a scale that exposes our technology to a vast array of challenging real-world scenarios.
As Principal Software Engineer Post Training, you will play a key role in advancing the technology to power the Waymo Driver and especially help it scale to dramatically more miles and locations across the world. Your primary responsibility will be to develop and lead a strategy of a next-generation post-training system on top of existing large-scale models (whose development this role will also influence). Post training is already used in the onboard software system, but we believe that there is a significant opportunity to advance its impact, in line with the advancements within the AI community in other applications. Your role would be to figure out how to accomplish that goal in the challenging, highly impactful problem of autonomously driving a vehicle in the real world at large scale.
This role follows a hybrid work schedule and reports into the Onboard organization.
You will:
- Advance the state-of-the-art post-training techniques in the AI running on board the autonomous vehicle
- Keep up with post-training research and find the right applications for the unique problems at Waymo
- Participate in the leadership community advancing the ML stack across Waymo in general
- Partner with teams developing ML platforms to develop them for effective, scalable post-training
- Partner with teams not yet using post-training effectively to understand their needs and guide them to effective post-training strategies
You have:
- MS in computer science with an emphasis in machine learning or equivalent degree (PhD preferred)
- 10+ years of leadership experience in a large-scale machine learned production system
- Experience leading a post-training system that is used in production with 100M+ users, solving multiple targeted problems in parallel
- Experience building metrics, data, and flywheels for post-training applications
- Experience influencing without authority at the director and VP level or higher
- An ability to balance influencing day-to-day leadership on the ground with developing and influencing engineering strategy
We prefer:
- Experience building a post-training platform from scratch
- Experience with utilizing ML in AV and/or other robotics applications
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.
Skills Required
- MS in computer science with an emphasis in machine learning or an equivalent degree
- 10+ years of leadership experience in a large-scale machine learned production system
- Experience leading a post-training system used in production with 100M+ users and solving multiple targeted problems in parallel
- Experience building metrics, data, and flywheels for post-training applications
- Experience influencing without authority at the director and VP level or higher
- Ability to balance day-to-day leadership with developing and influencing engineering strategy
- PhD in computer science or a related field
- Experience building a post-training platform from scratch
- Experience using machine learning in autonomous vehicles and/or robotics applications
Waymo Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Waymo and has not been reviewed or approved by Waymo.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is considered strong for full‑time technical roles, aligning with top‑tier AV/Big Tech benchmarks. Employer materials also emphasize competitive pay with eligibility for bonuses and equity as part of total rewards.
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Healthcare Strength — Coverage spans medical, dental, vision, mental‑health resources, onsite wellness centers, and counseling, with specialized programs such as menopause and transgender medical advocacy. Dependents are included, indicating depth across core health needs.
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Parental & Family Support — Offerings include fertility and family‑forming assistance, parental and baby‑bonding leave, caregiver and elder‑care support, and backup childcare. These programs are positioned to support families through multiple life stages.
Waymo Insights
What We Do
Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with a mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to move around. With the Waymo Driver, we can improve the world’s mobility while saving thousands of lives. Waymo reaches out to candidates from official channels only (e.g. directly from @waymo.com email addresses, or through our recruiters or sourcers who are noted as such on LinkedIn). We do not contact candidates about career opportunities through instant messaging apps like Telegram, email addresses from domains other than waymo.com (such as Gmail addresses), direct messages on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, or text messages. Visit waymo.com to check out our official job listings.
