Senior Software Engineer, Simulator Platform

Waymo; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 204,000 - 259,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary annual bonus program

Equity incentive plan

Generous Company benefits program

Job summary

A leading autonomous driving technology company is seeking an experienced machine learning engineer to enhance simulation capabilities in a hybrid role. You will work with a dynamic team to scale simulation systems, support mapping data evolution, and ensure simulator performance and reliability. Candidates should have over 5 years of backend experience, particularly in C++, and possess hands-on product development expertise. This role offers a competitive salary and benefits, reflective of skills and experience.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience with backend knowledge such as workflows, databases, SQL, production monitoring.
• Hands-on experience building a popular (internal or external-facing) product.

Responsibilities

• Work closely with onboard and research engineers to scale simulation.
• Support development, testing, and evolution of mapping data in the simulator.
• Improve/monitor the performance, scalability, and reliability of the simulator.
• Design long-term architecture to fit the product for internal customers.

Skills

C++

Backend development

SQL

Production monitoring

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.

The Simulator Team at Waymo builds state‑of‑the‑art simulations of realistic environments for testing and training the Waymo Driver. Your team will be a diverse, and collaborative group of machine learning (ML) engineers, software engineers and data scientists. We develop industry‑leading simulation solutions using advanced ML algorithms that measure and enhance the performance of the Waymo Driver. We achieve those goals by jointly modeling the real world, including realistic agents (vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists), roads, traffic control systems, and weather conditions, and the full sensor suite including camera, Lidar and radars.

To increase the fidelity, scalability and controllability of our simulations, we employ the latest ML technologies such as large language models, foundational world models, and reconstructive methods trained on large‑scale datasets with both generative and reconstructive technologies, as well as traditional rendering approaches.

In this hybrid role, you will report to a Senior Staff Engineering Manager.

You will:

• Work closely with onboard and research engineers to scale simulation and enable critical Waymo milestones
• Support development, testing and evolution of mapping data in the simulator
• Improve / monitor the performance, scalability and the reliability of the simulator
• Design the long term architecture to fit the product to an increasing number of internal customers

You have:

• Hands‑on experience building a popular (internal or external‑facing) product
• 5+ years of experience with backend knowledge such as workflows, databases, SQL, production monitoring, etc
• Strong in C++

We prefer:

• Experience with the release of software in a highly distributed heterogeneous execution environment
• Experience with systems programming (game engines, database, OS, distributed)
• Experience with ML

#LI‑Hybrid

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: $204,000 – $259,000 USD