Hardware Engineer, LIDAR Performance Validation

Waymo LLC; Mountain View (CA); Hybrid; USD 159,000 - 196,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary annual bonus program

Equity incentive plan

Generous Company benefits

Job summary

Waymo is seeking a skilled Hardware Engineer to advance LiDAR systems, working with electrical, mechanical, and software teams to ensure high-performance optical sensing. The role involves physics-based modeling, prototyping, and data analysis to meet safety and performance goals.

You will contribute to bench testing, field measurements, and scalable testing procedures while collaborating with perception and systems engineers to triage field issues and derive requirements.

Qualifications

• Masters or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Applied Physics or equivalent.
• Strong data analysis and communication skills.
• Experience with depth sensing technologies and prototyping.
• Track record of solving challenging technical problems.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with multi-disciplinary teams to develop LiDAR systems and subsystems.
• Develop bench characterization methods and physics-based software models.
• Define test and calibration procedures to ensure data quality at scale.
• Design field measurements and tests, assess environmental impacts on LiDAR performance.

Skills

Data analysis

Technical communication

Problem solving

Physics modeling

Education

Master's or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Applied Physics

Tools

Python

C++

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.

Hardware Engineering is an innovative and collaborative group of electrical, mechanical, reliability, software and vehicle engineers. We design, build, and perfect the products which are the eyes and ears of Waymo's autonomous driving technology, and integrate those products into vehicle platforms. We're seeking curious and talented teammates to keep us moving in the right direction.

This role follows a hybrid work schedule (at least 3 fixed days in the office) and reports to the LiDAR performance lead.

You will:

• Work closely with electrical, mechanical, manufacturing and reliability engineers to develop and characterize high performance LiDAR systems and electro-optical subsystems
• Develop bench characterization methods and accompanying physics-based software models to ensure the design is on track to achieve top level performance goals. Develop and maintain performance validation plans that scale appropriately with the design lifecycle from early bench prototypes to high volume production
• Support definition of appropriate test and calibration procedures to ensure LiDAR data quality at scale. Work with design and test engineers to develop appropriate testing procedures and performance acceptance criteria.
• Design and oversee execution of LiDAR field measurements and structured tests. Assess impact of environmental conditions on Lidar performance, help develop methods to detect and mitigate data quality impact of adverse environmental factors through experimental design, data mining and analysis
• Interface with LiDAR software engineers, perception software engineers and systems engineers to help triage field issues related to LiDAR data quality, and aid in requirement derivation to ensure the LiDAR module upholds system-level performance and safety goals
• Comfortably transition between physics modeling, simulation, large-scale data analysis and hands‑on prototyping & testing in the lab

You have:

• Masters of science with 5+ years experience or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Applied Physics or equivalent
• Strong knowledge of depth sensing technologies and hands on experience prototyping/characterizing precision optical, electrical, or mechanical components and assemblies
• Experience with developing and maintaining physics-based computational models to describe and quantify performance bounds of LiDAR or other optical sensing hardware
• Track record of innovation and solving challenging technical problems
• Excellent data analysis, presentation and technical communication skills

We prefer:

• PhD in Physics, Applied Physics, Electrical Engineering, or a similar field
• Proficiency with data analysis in Python or C++
• Experience with designing studies / experiments and hypothesis testing. Previous product development experience is a plus.
• A track record of working across multiple physics disciplines and hands‑on experience with from‑scratch analytical physics modeling (e.g. Matlab/Python)
• Strong understanding of optical semiconductors and optical systems

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.

Salary Range

$159,000—$196,000 USD