2027 Summer Intern, PhD, Perception/Road Understanding, ML Engineer

Waymo LLC; Mountain View, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 97,000 - 138,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid internship

Benefits eligibility

Job summary

Waymo LLC seeks a PhD candidate for a software internship in computer vision, robotics and ML. You will design and train models, run experiments, and collaborate with research mentors and engineers to advance the Waymo Driver.

Pursuing a PhD in CV, robotics, EE, ML or related field with strong Python skills and experience in PyTorch or TensorFlow. Hybrid onsite internship in Mountain View, CA offers mentorship and real impact on autonomous driving.

Qualifications

• Pursuing a PhD in a quantitative field related to CV/ML/robotics.
• Strong programming skills in Python and deep learning.
• Experience designing, training, and debugging deep learning architectures for CV/3D perception or related areas.
• Solid foundation in 2D/3D geometry and spatial reasoning.

Responsibilities

• Designing and Building Machine Learning Models: Writing clean, high-performance code to implement core algorithms for lane geometry and topology understanding
• Running Experiments and Training Pipelines: Setting up data pipelines and training neural networks across vehicle sensor modalities and map priors, with advanced training techniques.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partnering closely with research mentors, buddy, and upstream/downstream engineering teams to evaluate downstream planning impact and package insights for publication or internal deployment.

Skills

Python

Deep learning

2D/3D geometry

Coordinate transformations

Graph Neural Networks

Transformers

Education

PhD in Computer Vision, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Machine Learning, or related quantitative discipline

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

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.

Software Engineering buildsthe brains ofWaymo'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.

Waymo interns partner with leaders in the industry on projects that create impact to the company. We believe learning is a two-way street: applying your knowledge while providing you with opportunities to expand your skill-set. Interns are an important part of our culture and our recruiting pipeline. Join us at Waymo for a fun and rewarding internship!

You will:

• Designing and Building Machine Learning Models: Writing clean, high-performance code to implement core algorithms for lane geometry and topology understanding
• Running Experiments and Training Pipelines: Setting up data pipelines and training neural networks across vehicle sensor modalities and map priors, with advanced training techniques.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partnering closely with research mentors, buddy, and upstream/downstream engineering teams to evaluate downstream planning impact and package insights for publication or internal deployment.

You have:

• Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Vision, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Machine Learning, or a related quantitative discipline.
• Strong programming proficiency in Python and solid experience with modern deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch or TensorFlow).
• Hands-on experience designing, training, and debugging deep learning architectures for Computer Vision, 3D Perception, or Graph Neural Networks (e.g., Transformers, query based detectors, GNNs, or BEV perception).
• Solid foundational knowledge of 2D/3D geometry, coordinate transformations, and spatial/relational reasoning.

We prefer:

• Track record of publications in top-tier conferences in machine learning, computer vision, or robotics (e.g., CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, ICRA, CoRL, AAAI).
• Experience with vectorized HD map learning, lane topology estimation, or dynamic roadgraph modeling.
• Experience with large-scale distributed model training and data infrastructure.
• Familiarity with autonomous vehicle perception stacks, sensor fusion (camera, LiDAR).

Note: This will be a hybrid onsite internship position.

The expected hourly rate for this full-time position is listed below. Interns are also eligible to participate in the Company’s generous benefits programs, subject to eligibility requirements.

Hourly PhD Pay

$85—$85 USD