Senior Software Engineer, Perception Future Sensing Platforms

Waymo; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Waymo seeks a Senior Software Engineer for Perception Future Sensing Platforms. You will contribute to building a portable Perception software stack across sensor hardware and platforms, collaborating with hardware and software teams to advance the Waymo Driver capabilities.

Candidates should have strong C++ skills, software architecture experience, and hands-on work with sensor data processing and ML-based systems integration.

Qualifications

• BS in CS, robotics, or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong C++ programming with robust, efficient code.
• Strong software architecture skills.
• Experience with sensor data processing (Lidar, camera, or Radar).
• Experience building, integrating, debugging and evaluating ML-based systems.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with a team to bring up Perception software on new hardware platforms (vehicles, sensors, compute).
• Evolve Perception software to abstract hardware differences and implement changes with design docs, feedback, testing and health monitoring.
• Prototype and run de-risking experiments for next-generation Perception software portable to new sensor hardware.
• Evaluate sensor hardware options and write analyses summarizing high-level recommendations.

Skills

C++

Software architecture

Sensor data processing

ML-based systems

Sensor bring-up

Education

BS in CS/Robotics or related field

Job description

Senior Software Engineer, Perception Future Sensing Platforms

Aug 04, 2026

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 Perception team at Waymo builds technology that powers the Waymo Driver. 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 conduct research to address real-world problems and collaborate with research teams at Alphabet. We have access to millions of miles of driving data from a diverse set of sensors, enabling software engineers like you to develop multi-modal models and techniques at scale.

Our mission is to build a stable foundation for a high-level Perception pipeline and the overall self-driving system. We act as the crucial interface between Waymo's hardware teams and the rest of the self-driving engineering organization, defining sensor requirements, providing critical feedback to hardware teams, and abstracting away system complexities.

The Multi-Platform Team's purpose is to abstract away superfluous differences between various sensor hardware and encapsulate hardware-specific logic so that downstream Perception is as portable as possible. Our work allows a single parameterized Perception software stack to run on all sensor hardware platforms, to remain easily maintainable across N platforms with much less than N times the effort, and to rapidly adapt to new platforms. We bring up the overall Perception software stack on new sensor and vehicle platforms.

This role follows a hybrid work schedule and reports to a Technical Lead Manager.

You will:

• Work with a creative team of people who are responsible for the bring-up of Perception SW on new hardware platforms (vehicles, sensors, compute)
• Evolve existing SW to abstract away superfluous differences between various sensor hardware and encapsulate hardware-specific logic, by writing design docs, gathering feedback, implementing the change and testing it and monitoring its continued health and maintaining it during its lifespan
• Rapidly prototype and run de-risking experiments for the next-generation Perception SW stack that is designed to be more portable to the new sensor HW
• Maintain and run evaluations of existing or hypothetical new sensor hardware to help make decisions on sensor HW options. Write up analyses that summarize high-level recommendations using the evidence from these evaluations

You have:

• BS in Computer Science, Robotics, similar technical field of study, or equivalent practical experience
• Strong experience programming in C++ with robust and efficient code
• Strong software architecture skills
• Experience with sensor data processing (Lidar, camera, or Radar)
• Experience with building, integrating, debugging and evaluating ML-based systems
• Experience with bring-up of new sensors or vehicle platforms

We prefer:

• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, similar technical field of study, or equivalent practical experience
• Experience with autonomous vehicles (L4) or ADAS systems (L2/L3)

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.

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