Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Growth
Waymo
$175,000 - $215,000 / 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 Growth Machine Learning Engineering team partners closely with Data Science to take models from experimentation into reliable production. We own the underlying ML data infrastructure: standardizing shared feature definitions, eliminating data leakage in training pipelines, automating scheduled retraining, and establishing safeguards so faulty batch scoring runs never affect live promotions. By managing data integrity, deployment pipelines, and production monitoring, we provide the dedicated engineering support needed to keep model-driven growth initiatives dependable and scalable.
You will:
- Own the feature layer between the Growth DB and the models. Work with data engineering on schema design for ML features, and with data science to turn their feature lists into versioned feature definitions that training and scoring both read from.
- Build point-in-time correct training data, so a retrain sees each day as it was and does not leak future data. Data science has already named this as a gap in today's pipelines.
- Take models data science has trained and put them into production: validate against the offline results, wire them into batch scoring, and add input and output checks that stop a bad run before promos go out.
- Lead training automation: scheduled retrains, a model registry, and validation before a new model version is promoted.
- Monitor models in production: feature drift, score distribution shifts, and model versus random arm results.
- Be data science's day-to-day engineering counterpart, so feature and modeling questions do not queue behind the tech lead.
You have:
- Experience at roughly building production ML systems: feature pipelines, training data generation, batch inference.
- Strong SQL and Python, plus large-scale data processing (Flume, Beam, Spark or similar).
- Designed feature schemas or worked on a feature store, and understands point-in-time correctness and train/serve skew from having fixed them.
- Productionized and owned the lifecycle of an existing offline model
- Worked with data scientists and can turn a loose feature request into a spec.
We prefer:
- Background in uplift modeling, causal inference or experimentation (A/B tests, holdouts), enough to understand what the models need.
- Experience in ads, marketing, recommendations, pricing or promotions.
- Familiarity with feature stores, workflow orchestration (Airflow or similar) and distributed SQL databases.
#LI-Hybrid
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 Growth Machine Learning Engineering team bridges data science and production, owning the infrastructure that moves experimental models into reliable, scalable systems that power the company's ride-hail service and growth initiatives. You'd manage the feature layer connecting the Growth database to models, design schemas for ML features with data engineering, build point-in-time correct training data, and shepherd models from validation through batch scoring and into production monitoring. The role demands hands-on engineering: you'll establish safeguards to prevent faulty runs from affecting live promotions, lead training automation with model registries and validation gates, and track feature drift and score distribution shifts in production.
This position suits someone with solid production ML experience—feature pipelines, training data generation, batch inference—and strong fundamentals in SQL, Python, and large-scale data processing frameworks like Spark or Beam. You should have designed feature schemas or worked on a feature store, understand point-in-time correctness and train/serve skew from having debugged them, and have productionized and owned at least one offline model end-to-end. Working fluently with data scientists is essential; you'll be their day-to-day engineering counterpart, translating loose feature requests into concrete specifications.
Background in uplift modeling, causal inference, or experimentation (A/B tests, holdouts) is valued, as is prior experience in ads, marketing, recommendations, pricing, or promotions. Familiarity with feature stores, workflow orchestration tools like Airflow, and distributed SQL databases is preferred. The role is hybrid in San Francisco, full-time, with a salary range of $175,000–$215,000 plus bonus eligibility and equity participation.
How this employer is doing
solid
- News: Growing or Expanding
- H1B: Active Visa Sponsor
- Expanding
- New Product/Innovation
In the news
Waymo’s Expansion Is Putting Uber and Lyft Drivers on Notice, Autoblog
This role's local market on JobMinglr
Pay for this role
$175,000 to $215,000 per year
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