Staff Data Scientist

Waymo; California (MO); Hybrid; USD 238,000 - 302,000; Full time

Job summary

Waymo is seeking a data science leader to measure and improve the quality of behavior evaluation for the Waymo Driver. In this hybrid role, you will lead initiatives to develop metrics, sampling strategies, and statistical approaches that ensure safe and scalable evaluation of the autonomous driving system.

You will partner with product and engineering teams, drive insights across organizations, and help design launch criteria based on rigorous evaluation frameworks.

Qualifications

• Degree in a quantitative field (e.g. Statistics, Mathematics, Physics)
• PhD in a quantitative field with 5+ years of industry experience or 7+ years of industry experience in data science
• Solid statistical background with advanced methods (experimentation design, causal inference) and familiarity with ML systems/models
• Proficiency with data analysis libraries in Python, R, or SQL
• Strong communication/leadership across organizations and products
• Ability to navigate ambiguous business requirements and propose clear technical solutions

Responsibilities

• Lead a roadmap to develop metrics, sampling strategies, and KPIs for evaluating Waymo Driver behaviors
• Influence evaluation signals used by engineers to ensure positive impacts on Waymo Driver changes
• Conduct deep-dive analyses to identify bottlenecks and prototype improvements in metrics and inference
• Become an expert in Waymo’s evaluation ecosystem for onboard software and launch criteria
• Collaborate with product and engineering teams to build scalable evaluation solutions
• Provide actionable feedback to stakeholders for continuous improvement

Skills

Statistics

Python/SQL

Communication

Experimentation

Causal inference

Education

PhD in quantitative field

Bachelor's in quantitative 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.

Rigorous behavioral evaluation of the Waymo Driver is a critical part of scaling our ride hailing service and achieving Waymo’s ambitious goals. In this role, you will lead key initiatives for measuring the quality and trustworthiness of the behavior evaluation portfolio at Waymo, continuously identify and drive opportunities for improving the evaluation and testing methodologies, and partner closely with product and engineering teams to develop scalable solutions for monitoring and enhancing the health of the evaluation ecosystem. You will play a key role to ensure the behavior evaluation at Waymo is efficient, scientifically rigorous, and supporting Waymo’s growth priorities.

In this hybrid role you will report to a Data Science Lead.

You will:

• Lead a roadmap to develop methodologies and Key Performance Indicators to measure the quality, cost efficiency, and business relevance for various behavior evaluation solutions at Waymo.
• Directly influence the portfolio of evaluation signals relied on by hundreds of software engineers to ensure their changes in the Waymo Driver are having positive intended impacts.
• Conduct deep dive analysis to understand performance bottlenecks in current evaluation methodologies, propose and prototype improvements in metrics, sampling strategy, statistical inference, etc.
• Become an expert in Waymo’s evaluation ecosystem for onboard software. Understand how a broad variety of evaluation signals affect Waymo’s launch decisions, develop strategies for evaluating trade-offs, and provide actionable insights for designing launch criteria.
• Collaborate with product and engineering teams to build solutions for assessing Waymo’s evaluation portfolio at scale and accelerate the development for new evaluation.
• Collaborate with owners of various evaluation solutions, develop feedback loops to surface insights on evaluation quality to stakeholders and drive actionable plans for continuous improvement.

You have:

• Degree in a quantitative field (e.g. Statistics, Mathematics, Physics)
• Either a PhD in a quantitative field and 5+ years of industry experience, or 7+ years of industry experience solving data science problems
• Solid statistical background. Expertise using advanced statistical methods in an applied setting (e.g., experimentation design, causal inference, etc); familiarity with ML systems/models
• Demonstrated knowledge of data analysis libraries and packages in Python, R, and/or SQL
• Strong communication/leadership to address a high surface area across different organizations and products
• Ability to navigate through ambiguous business requirements and propose a clear technical solution

We prefer:

• PhD in a quantitative field
• Experience developing production-grade software and tools
• Experience as the technical lead for a broad data science area. A demonstrated track record of independently driving data science projects to deliver business value
• Experience with large-scale evaluation frameworks or experimentation/data platform for software development and machine learning systems
• Experience solving problems related to Autonomous Driving or Ride Hailing

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

$238,000—$302,000 USD