AI-Driven Software Quality & Safety Ops Lead

Waymo; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 234,000; Full time

Job summary

Waymo is seeking an experienced leader for Software Quality Operations focusing on ML/Operations to scale safety triage and AI-driven workflows in autonomous driving. The role emphasizes collaboration with Product, Engineering, Data Science, and Systems Engineering to deliver robust ML-driven safety solutions.

You will develop and apply advanced ML techniques, oversee validation, and drive automation while partnering across teams to maintain scale as Waymo expands to new cities and platforms.

Qualifications

• BS/BA degree or 7+ years of relevant work experience in AV Software Quality Operations / ML Operations.
• Experience coordinating with Product, Engineering, Data Science, and Systems Engineering to drive outcomes.
• Experience across the machine learning development lifecycle: data preparation, training, validation, deployment, and monitoring.
• Experience with ML testing and validation: dataset quality assurance, bias detection, edge-case testing, and performance evaluation using metrics.
• Ability to quickly learn and implement new concepts and use proprietary tools; strong understanding of driving rules.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, high-stress environment with good judgment.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to collaborate across teams.

Responsibilities

• Drive the strategy and technical implementation of decomposing complex safety triage workflows; apply advanced operational and ML techniques for automation and scalability.
• Serve as the subject matter expert for human-in-the-loop ML systems in safety; define requirements for high-quality human feedback to optimize models.
• Partner with Engineering to design, test, and deploy ML/GenAI models and tools to improve issue discovery, triage efficiency, and quality assurance.
• Leverage AI-powered insights and traditional triage signals to identify emerging on-road issue trends and risk scenarios.
• Serve as the key link between AI/ML development and operational execution; draft policies, roadmaps, and blueprints to scale operations.
• Advise senior stakeholders on long-term technical strategy and operational capabilities of the organization.

Skills

ML testing

Validation metrics

SQL querying

Data analysis

Education

BS/BA or 7+ years

Job description

Waymo is seeking an experienced leader for Software Quality Operations focusing on ML/Operations to scale safety triage and AI-driven workflows in autonomous driving. The role emphasizes collaboration with Product, Engineering, Data Science, and Systems Engineering to deliver robust ML-driven safety solutions.

You will develop and apply advanced ML techniques, oversee validation, and drive automation while partnering across teams to maintain scale as Waymo expands to new cities and platforms.