Software Engineer, Perception Scaling Evaluation

Waymo; California (MO); Hybrid; USD 175,000 - 215,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Equity incentives

Benefits program

Job summary

Waymo is seeking a highly capable software engineer for the Perception team, focusing on the Waymo Driver perception stack and sensor health. You will work with world-class engineers to build scalable evaluation frameworks and contribute to robust sensing system development.

The role emphasizes C++ development, ML evaluation, and collaboration across teams to advance autonomous driving technology and ensure safety.

Qualifications

• BS in Computer Science, Robotics, or equivalent practical experience.
• 2+ years of experience in industrial AI applications involving ML product creation, maintenance and evaluation.
• Experience developing and evaluating ML software systems.

Responsibilities

• Dive deep into the Waymo Driver perception stack across driving conditions.
• Help set perception development direction for scaling to new environments and sensors.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to influence roadmap for perception tech.
• Architect high-scale automation and evaluation frameworks for safety and reliability.
• Innovate simulation tools for sensor emulation and edge-case testing.
• Support sign-off process for sensing system development and releases.

Skills

C++ programming

AI/ML eval

Industrial AI

Collaboration

Education

BS in CS/Robotics

MS/PhD preferred

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 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 Sensor Health team's job is to make sure that sensors "just work" for the entire self-driving car software stack. We make sure that all sensors are properly calibrated and consistently monitored at all times. We are often the firsts to algorithmically process data from next-generation sensors on next-generation vehicle platforms and work closely with both hardware and software teams to provide the best possible sensor data from our many sensors perfectly aligned to our upstream customers. To this end, we develop sensor data alignment and calibration algorithms, a growing sensor health backend, and deploy our systems both into the Waymo Driver and our log processing backend.

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

You will:

• Dive deep into the Waymo Driver’s perception stack and build a deep understanding of its capabilities in various driving conditions
• Help set the perception development direction to allow the stack to scale to new driving environments, platforms, and sensors
• Collaborate across world-class engineering teams to influence the roadmap for next-generation perception technology
• Architect high-scale, mission-critical automation and evaluation frameworks that establish the "ultimate truth" for the safety, performance, and reliability of the Waymo Driver
• Innovate simulation tools for advanced sensor emulation, rigorously testing vehicle performance against complex impairments and edge-case faults
• Support sign-off process for all stages of sensing system development and software releases. Present results at milestone sign-off reviews

You have:

• BS in Computer Science, Robotics, similar technical field of study, or equivalent practical experience
• 2+ years of experience in industrial AI applications involving the creation, maintenance, and evaluation of ML products
• Experience developing and conducting eval for large ML software systems
• Strong experience programming in C++ with robust and efficient code

We prefer:

• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, similar technical field of study, or equivalent practical experience with at least 2 years of industry experience
• Experience with autonomous vehicles (L4) or ADAS systems (L2/L3)
• Strong software architecture skills

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.

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

$175,000 - $215,000 USD