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.
We are looking for a passionate Backend Software Engineer to enhance the rider experience and develop systems for understanding our operational environment. Your work will involve both refining the in-app experience, especially in complex venues like airports, and building a platform to collect and analyze city health data, generating crucial insights for internal teams and external partners.
You will be developing high-quality, reliable, and scalable backend systems that form the backbone of mission-critical Waymo infrastructure, enabling new functionalities, supporting expansion into new markets, and providing data-driven intelligence.
You will:
- Lead the design and development of high-impact backend systems and APIs crucial for Waymo's rider experience and operational intelligence.
- Architect and implement scalable platforms to ingest, process, and analyze city and vehicle data, generating key insights.
- Drive the technical vision and roadmap for backend services that support seamless rider journeys, especially in complex venues.
- Build and maintain robust, mission-critical infrastructure to support Waymo's expanding autonomous vehicle operations.
- Collaborate across engineering, product, and operations teams to deliver innovative solutions for our riders and internal tools.
- Mentor other engineers, championing best practices in software design, testing, and reliability.
- Own the end-to-end delivery of complex features, from conception through production deployment and beyond.
- Enhance system performance and scalability to ensure highly reliable service for our autonomous fleet.
You have:
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
- 8 years of experience in backend development, across back-end such as Java/Kotlin, Python, Go, or C++ codebases.
- Experience with designing and developing distributed systems.
- Experience collaborating with other software developers and cross-functional stakeholders at multiple levels and across sites.
- Experience in leading large efforts and a team of engineers.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
We prefer:
- Experience with engineering artifacts, reliability monitoring and alerting, security and privacy practices and techniques, documentation, integration testing, production hygiene, and support processes.
- Experience with large scale distributed systems.
- Proficiency in c++.
- Experience in leading teams of engineers.
#LI-Hybrid
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience
- 8 years of experience in backend development
- Experience designing and developing distributed systems
- Experience collaborating with software developers and stakeholders
- Experience in leading large efforts and a team of engineers
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.
