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 Planner Evaluation team works on one of the key challenges in autonomous driving: measuring and improving the quality of the software that drives the car. We are looking for experienced data-minded software engineers and data scientists to help us improve how we characterize and evaluate changes to the Onboard software stack (Planner, Perception, etc). If you are passionate about autonomous vehicles and how to use rich, complex data to drive decision making, this is the role for you!
This role follows a hybrid work schedule and reports to an Engineering Manager.
You will:
- Lead and manage a team of software engineers in charge of developing driving quality metrics, measuring the robustness of the Waymo Driver to its input (e.g. sensors data, maps), using a range of techniques including ML, statistics, and algorithms
- Define a long-term strategy, develop roadmaps, and guide the team to execute projects from ambiguous requirements to high-impact deliverables
- Use simulation creatively and mine real world driving logs to measure driving performance
- Champion code health and best practices in a large and complex code base
- Collaborate with other engineers, data scientists, statisticians and the leadership team to deliver evaluation products and help make data driven decisions
You have:
- Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Statistics, Physics, Math or another quantitative area
- 5+ years of experience in the field of software engineering
- Solid technical leadership in defining vision, strategy and priorities
- Proficiency in C++ or Python in a production environment
- Strong technical communication and collaboration skills
We prefer:
- 2+ years of experience in team management
- Experience coding in C++
- Experience with ML
- Experience with A/B experiment infrastructure
- Exposure to ad-hoc data analysis with SQL
- Experience working 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.
Skills Required
- Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Statistics, Physics, Mathematics, or another quantitative field
- 5+ years of software engineering experience
- Technical leadership experience defining vision, strategy, and priorities
- Proficiency in C++ or Python in a production environment
- Strong technical communication and collaboration skills
- 2+ years of team management experience
- Experience coding in C++
- Experience with machine learning
- Experience with A/B experiment infrastructure
- Exposure to ad hoc data analysis with SQL
- Experience working in the autonomous vehicle industry
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.
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