Senior Research Scientist, Sensor Simulation

Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the 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 One, a fully autonomous ride-hailing service, and can also be applied to a range of vehicle platforms and product use cases. The Waymo Driver has provided over one million rider-only trips, enabled by its experience autonomously driving tens of millions of miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 13+ U.S. states.

The mission of the Waymo Research team is to develop machine learning solutions addressing open problems in autonomous driving, towards the goal of safely operating Waymo vehicles in dozens of cities and under all driving conditions. As part of our work, we also initiate and foster collaborations with other research teams in Alphabet. Research areas that we are currently focusing on include reinforcement learning, learning from demonstration, generative modeling, Bayesian inference, hierarchical learning, and robust evaluation.

In this hybrid role, you will report to a Research Science Manager.

You will:

• Solve fundamental research problems related to 3D dynamic scene reconstruction from real-world scenarios, scene synthesis using generative models, or combining reconstructive and generative methods
• Advance, adapt and scale state-of-the-art ML-based reconstruction methods, such as 3D Gaussian Splatting, to the problem of AV simulation
• Prototype and iterate on various research ideas using Waymo's internal driving data
• Present research findings to a wide audience within Waymo and Alphabet, with the possibility of publishing results to the research community

You have:

• In-depth expertise with 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) and/or other learning-based 3D reconstruction methods, as well as traditional 3D vision and graphics
• Strong ML software engineering skills in Python with an ability to rapidly prototype solutions
• Hands-on experience scaling ML solutions to well beyond the research stage
• Track record of publications in top-tier conferences in related fields

We prefer:

• PhD in relevant field
• Previous work on or exposure to generative computer vision models, in particular diffusion models
• Domain experience in the autonomous vehicle or simulation space

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.