Foundation Model Data, Software Engineer

Waymo; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 213,000 - 263,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental and vision insurance

401(k) retirement benefits with company match

20 days of paid vacation annually

Paid sick time

Generous maternity leave

13 paid holidays annually

Job summary

Waymo, based in Mountain View, is seeking a team member to build and operate large-scale ML infrastructure, contributing to the development of their autonomous driving technology. Your responsibilities will involve working with cutting-edge data systems and transforming research prototypes into reliable components within the Waymo Driver.

The ideal candidate holds an undergraduate degree in a related field, has proficiency in Python and C++, and possesses experience with tools like Flume and Spark. The role offers a hybrid work environment and competitive compensation.

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree in a related technical field or equivalent experience.
• Proficiency in Python and C++. Strong hands-on software engineering skills.
• Experience with ML infrastructure or large-scale data pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Build and operate large-scale data systems for model development.
• Transform research models into robust components within Waymo Driver.
• Ensure efficient rollout of data solutions and improve ML development lifecycle.

Skills

Python

C++

Large-scale data pipelines

ML infrastructure

Software Engineering

Education

Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or Robotics

Tools

Flume

Spark

Borg

Kubeflow

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 more than 15 U.S. states.

The mission of the Waymo AI Foundations team is to develop machine learning solutions addressing open problems in autonomous driving, towards the goal of safely operating Waymo vehicles in dozens of cities and under all driving conditions. As part of our work, we also initiate and foster collaborations with other research teams in Alphabet. AI Foundations areas that we are currently focusing on include reinforcement learning, learning from demonstration, generative modeling, Bayesian inference, hierarchical learning, and robust evaluation.

In this hybrid role, you will report to a Principal Research Scientist.

Responsibilities

• Build and operate the petabyte‑scale data systems and ML pipelines at the heart of Waymo's foundation model development
• Shepherd cutting‑edge foundation models from research prototypes to robust components within the Waymo Driver
• Develop automated, high‑performance infrastructure to ensure the dependable and efficient rollout of data solutions at the forefront of Waymo foundation model program
• Wield large‑scale compute and frameworks like Flume/Beam and JAX to process massive datasets for training, evaluating and deploying complex models
• Drive significant leaps in the speed, reliability, and efficiency of the end‑to‑end ML development lifecycle
• Partner with experts in AI Foundations, ML, and Platform to transform model innovations into tangible improvements to Waymo's product

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, similar technical field of study, or equivalent practical experience
• Proficiency in Python and C++
• Experience building or maintaining large‑scale data pipelines or ML infrastructure (e.g., Flume, Spark, Borg, Kubeflow)
• Strong hands‑on SWE skills, able to drive development of large, complex shared codebases

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing and building distributed systems or MLOps platforms (e.g., model versioning, experiment tracking, CI/CD for ML)
• Familiarity with one of the modern deep learning frameworks (e.g., Pytorch, JAX, Tensorflow)
• Experience in AV planning and related research
• Prior work in an industrial or research setting developing methodologies for data‑centric improvement of ML models
• Previous data curation experience and multimodal experience

Benefits

• Health, dental, vision, life, disability insurance
• Retirement Benefits: 401(k) with company match
• Paid Time Off: 20 days of vacation per year, accruing at a rate of 6.15 hours per pay period for the first five years of employment
• Sick Time: 40 hours/year (statutory, where applicable); 5 days/event (discretionary)
• Maternity Leave (Short‑Term Disability + Baby Bonding): 28-30 weeks
• Baby Bonding Leave: 18 weeks
• Holidays: 13 paid days per year

Compensation

The expected base salary range for this full‑time position across U.S. locations is listed below.

$213,000 – $263,000 USD

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.