Senior Software Engineer, Planner

Waymo; Mountain View (WY); Hybrid; USD 204,000 - 259,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary annual bonus

Equity incentive plan

Generous benefits program

Job summary

Waymo is seeking a software engineer to join its autonomous driving program in a hybrid role reporting to a Technical Lead Manager. You will develop software for perception, decision-making and real-time control, focusing on robust C++ implementations and scalable data pipelines for the Waymo Driver.

The role emphasizes collaboration with robotics, ML and systems teams, requires a BS in Computer Science or related field and 5+ years of software experience, and offers a path to work on

Qualifications

• BS in Computer Science, ML, Robotics, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years general software engineering experience in C++
• Experience collaborating with different teams

Responsibilities

• Work with a creative team to ensure that the behavior of our cars is safe, smooth, and predictable to other road users, handling complex situations with noisy, uncertain information.
• Frame open-ended real-world problems into well-defined engineering problems; develop tools, algorithms and evaluation mechanisms; scale to data pipelines; run in real-time on the cars

Skills

C++ programming

Team collaboration

Software engineering

Education

BS in Computer Science or related field

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 builds the brains of Waymo’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.

In this hybrid role, you will report to Technical Lead Manager.

You will:

• Work with a creative team of people who ensure that the behavior of our cars is safe, smooth, and predictable to other road users, which includes gracefully handling many complex situations involving social aspects (merging, negotiating narrow roads), while dealing with noisy, uncertain, and incomplete information.
• Frame the open‑ended real‑world problems into well‑defined engineering problems; develop tools, algorithms and evaluation mechanisms; scale them to Google‑sized data pipelines; and refine them to run in real‑time on the cars.

You have:

• BS in Computer Science, ML, Robotics, similar technical field of study, or equivalent practical experience
• 5+ years general software engineering experience programming in C++ with efficient code
• Experience collaborating with different teams

We prefer:

• MS in Computer Science, ML Robotics, similar technical field of study
• General software engineering experience solving motion planning or related robotics problems
• Experience solving or evaluating ML‑based systems

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

$204,000—$259,000 USD