Software Quality Operations Specialist - Australia/Canada

Waymo LLC; Greater London; On-site; GBP 97,000 - 105,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Equity incentives

Benefits program

Job summary

Waymo is seeking a Technical Specialist within the Software Quality Operations (SWQOps) team to partner with Engineering to design, test, and deploy ML/Gen-AI models and tools, driving improvements in issue discovery, triage efficiency, and quality assurance for new markets including London.

You will translate AI insights into actionable SOPs, lead policy development, ensure robust QA for human and AI outputs, and collaborate with international vendor teams to scale the Waymo Driver safely.

Qualifications

• BS/BA degree in a technical or analytical field, or 5+ years AV/ADAS experience.
• Valid driver’s license with extensive on-road driving experience and knowledge of driving rules, including Canadian/Australian contexts.
• Experience across ML development lifecycle: data prep, training, validation, deployment and monitoring.
• Experience with ML testing/validation, including dataset QA, bias detection, edge-case testing, and metrics.

Responsibilities

• Partner with Engineering to design, test, and deploy cutting-edge ML/Gen-AI models and tools to drive improvements in issue discovery, triage, and QA.
• Leverage AI-powered insights to identify emerging on-road issue trends, new risk scenarios, and edge cases.
• Serve as the key link between AI/ML development and operational execution; define SOPs and guidelines.
• Design and implement robust quality control processes for human and AI outputs; adapt to Canadian and Australian driving rules.
• Act as SME for technical policies; consult with local/international stakeholders for policy adoption.
• Provide technical leadership and escalate tool issues; drive user testing for new tooling features.

Skills

ML testing

Dataset quality

Bias detection

Edge-case testing

Performance metrics

SQL querying

Education

BS/BA degree or 5+ years AV/ADAS experience

Tools

SQL

Proprietary tools

Job 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 Software Quality Operations (SWQOps) team is at the heart of enabling safe and successful scale-up into new international markets and incubating mission-critical, high-impact workflows. Our mission is to build an adaptable and scalable operation, increasingly powered by AI, to deliver the crucial insights necessary to confidently deploy and grow Waymo's autonomous vehicle service.

Why This Team is Essential to Waymo's Success:

Waymo is undergoing unprecedented growth, rapidly expanding into new cities (targeting ~20 new cities by EOY 2026, including international expansion to London and Tokyo) and launching new vehicle platforms. SWQOps, especially our Technical Specialists, plays a critical role in this expansion, making it possible to scale safely and efficiently. We are on the front lines of:

• International RO & New Market Readiness: Concerted effort to update triage policy, standing Voice of Customer in new countries. Through meticulous triage of driving events, issue discovery, and continuous field monitoring, SWQOps provides early warnings and critical insights to Product and Data Science partners.
• Supporting the development of a single, automated, end-to-end machine learning flywheel for the entire Waymo Driver. A successful flywheel will be the core engine for scaling our technology, enabling faster international expansion, quicker remediation of driving issues, and a significant reduction in the engineering effort required to maintain and improve the driver.
• Driving Engineering Velocity: By handling the vital work of performance evaluation, issue deep-dives, and data set curation, SWQOps collaborates heavily and allows Waymo's Engineering, SysEng, Simulation, and Data Science teams to focus on their core tasks of developing and improving the Waymo Driver.
• Workflow Incubation & Development: Incubating high-impact workflows and ensuring readiness for automation and long-term operational excellence.

You will:

• Partner with Engineering to design, test, and deploy cutting-edge Machine Learning (ML) and Generative AI (Gen-AI) models and tools to drive step-change improvements in issue discovery & detection, triage efficiency, and quality assurance. Provides technical requirements to Engineering for tooling that supports new market workflows (e.g., localization of ML/Gen-AI models, new data pipelines).
• Leverage AI-powered insights and traditional triage signals to proactively identify emerging on-road issue trends, new risk scenarios, and edge cases. Develop and refine data-driven strategies for issue discovery and monitoring, enhanced by ML model outputs
• Serve as the key link between AI/ML development and operational execution. Define and document new policies, guidelines, and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that integrate AI tools and insights into daily vendor workflows.
• Design and implement robust quality control processes for both human and AI-generated outputs. Designs and validates new triage policies, SOPs, and quality control processes specifically for Canadian and Australian driving rules, local infrastructure conventions and regional driving conditions. .
• Act as the Subject Matter Expert for technical policies and guidelines in the new market. Consult with local/international stakeholders to ensure seamless adoption of technical policies.
• Provide technical leadership and consultation to stakeholders to enhance our workflows and quality. You'll be at the forefront of identifying and escalating issues with our tools, providing technical requirements to engineering, and driving user testing to support the development and deployment of new tooling features.

You have:

• BS/BA degree in a technical or analytical field, or 5+ years of relevant work experience in Autonomous Vehicles (AV), Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS), automotive systems engineering, robotics, or complex technical software operations
• Active, valid driver's license with extensive personal on-road driving experience and a thorough understanding of driving rules, roadway design, and regulations in Canadian and/or Australian metropolitan areas. .
• Increased competency in supporting all phases of the machine learning development lifecycle, from data preparation and training to validation, deployment, and continuous monitoring.
• Experience with ML testing and validation, including dataset quality assurance, bias detection, edge-case scenario testing, and performance evaluation using statistical metrics.
• Ability to quickly learn and implement new concepts and utilize proprietary tools. Strong understanding of driving rules and regulations.
• A proven ability to work in a fast-paced, high-stress environment while maintaining good judgment and navigating technical ambiguity.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to effectively collaborate with a wide range of individuals in a diverse and dynamic work environment

We prefer:

• Demonstrated strong execution with ability to drive outcomes in new environments, from early-stage to maturity.
• Demonstrated experience working with international and/or offshore vendor teams to drive global process standardization and quality
• Analytic skills and basic SQL querying
• Competency in LLM / transformer models, and / or ML for robotics domain experience
• A greater focus on using your subject matter expertise for results analysis and direct customer consultation in the development of new and improved solutions
• Self-motivated with basic skills in task planning and time management
• Experience with project management or program management in a global, distributed environment

The expected base salary range for this full-time position 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. 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.

Salary Range

£97,000—£105,000 GBP