Staff Software Engineer, Planner Evaluation

Waymo; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 251,000 - 310,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus program

Equity incentive plan

Generous company benefits program

Job summary

Waymo in San Francisco is seeking experienced software engineers and data scientists to improve the quality of its autonomous driving technology. As part of the Planner Evaluation team, you will develop signals to measure driving performance, collaborate across teams, and utilize rich data for decision-making.

The ideal candidate will have a BS in a quantitative area and 4-7 years of industry experience in coding and statistical analysis. The role offers a hybrid work schedule and competitive salary, with additional annual bonus and equity incentives.

Qualifications

• 4-7 years of industry experience navigating and modifying large code bases.
• Strong self-motivation and ability to solve complex open-ended problems.
• Quant/data fluency is a top requirement.

Responsibilities

• Develop signals to measure performance and quality of the Waymo driver.
• Use simulation and real-world logs to assess driving performance.
• Collaborate with engineers to deliver evaluation products.

Skills

C++

Python

SQL

Statistical analysis

Data processing pipelines

Machine learning

Education

BS in Computer Science, Robotics, Statistics, Physics, Math

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 Planner Evaluation team works on one of the key challenges in autonomous driving: measuring and improving the quality of the software that drives the car. We are looking for experienced data‑minded software engineers and data scientists to help us improve how we characterize and evaluate changes to the onboard software stack (Planner, Perception, etc). If you are passionate about autonomous vehicles and how to use rich, complex data to drive decision making, this is the role for you!

This role follows a hybrid work schedule and reports to anSr. Engineering Manager.

You will:

• Develop signals to measure the performance and driving qualities of the Waymo driver, using a range of techniques including statistics, math, physics, algorithms and machine learning.
• Use simulation creatively and mine real‑world driving logs to measure driving performance.
• Design and implement methods to make a stronger connection between onboard software changes and simulated outcomes.
• Champion code health and best practices in a large and complex code base.
• Analyze data and make recommendations on how to improve metric quality and interpretability.
• Collaborate with other engineers, data scientists, statisticians and the leadership team to deliver evaluation products and help make data‑driven decisions.

You have:

• BS in Computer Science, Robotics, Statistics, Physics, Math or another quantitative area.
• Strong self‑motivation to navigate complex systems and pursue open‑ended problems to completion.
• 4‑7 years of industry experience with
  • Navigating and modifying a large code base containing a variety of languages, such as C++, Python, and SQL.
  • Performing statistical analyses.
  • Building data processing pipelines.
  • Writing, reviewing, and merging code following industry standards for code health and maintainability.
  • Quant/data fluency is a top requirement.

We prefer:

• Experience coding in C++.
• Experience with machine learning.
• Experience with A/B experiment infrastructure.
• Experience building and validating metrics to measure quality in complex systems.
• Exposure to ad‑hoc data analysis tools for rapid modeling and prototyping.
• Experience working in the AV industry.

Salary Range: $251,000 - $310,000 USD.

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.