Staff Software Engineer, TLM, Quantitative Evaluations
Waymo
$251,000 - $310,000 / year
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Description
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.
Benefits
- stock options
- bonus
About this role
Waymo's Planner Evaluation team is building the systems to measure and improve the core software that drives their autonomous vehicles. This Staff Software Engineer role leads a team focused on developing metrics and evaluation frameworks—using simulation, real-world driving logs, ML, and statistical analysis—to characterize how well the Waymo Driver performs and how robustly it handles sensor data, maps, and other inputs. You'd own the technical strategy and roadmap for these evaluation products while maintaining code quality across a large, complex codebase and collaborating with engineers, data scientists, and leadership to inform critical decisions about the software stack.
The role requires a Master's degree or PhD in a quantitative field and at least five years of software engineering experience, with demonstrated technical leadership and fluency in C++ or Python at production scale. You should be comfortable translating ambiguous requirements into high-impact deliverables and communicating clearly across disciplines. Prior team management experience, C++ expertise, ML knowledge, and familiarity with A/B testing infrastructure are valued; experience in autonomous vehicles is a plus but not required.
This is a hybrid position in San Francisco with a base salary of $251,000–$310,000, plus eligibility for annual bonuses, equity, and company benefits. It's suited for someone who wants to tackle a fundamental challenge in autonomous driving—how to rigorously measure and improve safety and performance—while leading a technical team.
How this employer is doing
solid
- News: Growing or Expanding
- H1B: Active Visa Sponsor
- Expanding
- New Product/Innovation
In the news
Waymo Expands To Toronto. Will They Use The Ojai? Robotaxis In Canada, Forbes
This role's local market on JobMinglr
Pay for this role
$251,000 to $310,000 per year
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