Software Engineer, ML

About The Company Waymo is an innovative autonomous driving technology company dedicated to transforming mobility through cutting-edge advancements in self-driving systems. Established as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has evolved into a leader in the autonomous vehicle industry with a mission to become the world’s most trusted driver. The company’s core focus is on developing the Waymo Driver—The World’s Most Experienced Driver™—which aims to enhance access to mobility, reduce traffic-related fatalities, and improve overall road safety. With over ten million rider-only trips facilitated by its autonomous system, Waymo has driven more than 100 million miles on public roads across 15+ U.S. states, complemented by tens of billions of miles in simulation, demonstrating its commitment to reliability and innovation in autonomous driving technology.

About The Role Waymo is seeking a highly skilled Staff-level Engineer to serve as a strategic bridge between our Machine Learning Product teams and Core Infrastructure. In this pivotal role, you will oversee multiple ML systems, focusing on enhancing efficiency and reliability within our core machine learning pipelines. Your primary responsibility will be to act as a ‘force multiplier,’ enabling ML researchers to innovate by optimizing the underlying infrastructure that supports model training, data ingestion, and deployment workflows. You will develop high-performance middleware and tooling, streamline build and version control processes, and troubleshoot complex system failures across distributed systems. Your expertise will directly influence the scalability, robustness, and performance of Waymo’s autonomous driving systems, ensuring that our machine learning models operate seamlessly at scale.

Qualifications

• Proficiency in C++ with a focus on system performance, concurrency, and memory management
• Strong Python programming skills, particularly in ML modeling and scripting
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, including resource management, job scheduling, RPC, and distributed storage
• Extensive debugging experience with complex, black-box systems
• Proven ability to drive technical consensus and influence cross-functional teams
• Experience with large-scale monorepos and production-grade code development
• Background in optimizing ML workloads on custom AI accelerators such as TPUs or GPUs (preferred)
• Knowledge of build systems like Bazel or similar (preferred)
• Familiarity with serialization formats such as Protocol Buffers (preferred)
• Experience in remote development environments or interactive notebooks (preferred)

Responsibilities

• Partner with Core Infrastructure teams to develop and influence the strategic roadmap for compute, storage, and scheduling resources
• Translate ML product requirements into concrete infrastructure requests and prioritize them effectively
• Act as the technical escalation point for production issues, troubleshooting failures spanning the entire stack from Python-level errors to underlying infrastructure problems
• Instrument system modules to monitor performance, detect issues, and implement recovery strategies to maintain system stability
• Profile and optimize end-to-end ML pipelines, identifying bottlenecks in data loading, model training, and inference workflows
• Implement C++ optimizations to reduce Python overhead and improve overall pipeline efficiency
• Build robust CLI tools and middleware to automate routine tasks, streamline development workflows, and improve productivity
• Develop shims and wrappers to integrate new infrastructure features into the ML stack ahead of official support, enabling faster iteration
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure seamless integration and deployment of infrastructure enhancements

Benefits

• Competitive salary range of $238,000—$302,000 USD, commensurate with experience and location
• Participation in Waymo’s discretionary annual bonus program
• Equity incentive plan providing long-term ownership opportunities
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance plans
• Generous paid time off and flexible work arrangements
• Access to ongoing professional development and training programs
• Supportive and innovative work environment committed to diversity and inclusion

Equal Opportunity

Waymo is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. We believe that a diverse team fosters innovation and drives our mission to build the safest and most trusted autonomous driving technology in the world.