Senior Staff Software Engineer, 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 Simulator Team at Waymo builds state-of-the-art simulations of realistic environments for testing and training the Waymo Driver. Your team will be a diverse, and collaborative group of machine learning (ML) engineers, software engineers and data scientists. We develop industry-leading simulation solutions using advanced ML algorithms that measure and enhance the performance of the Waymo Driver. We achieve those goals by jointly modeling the real world, including realistic agents (vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists), roads, traffic control systems, and weather conditions, and the full sensor suite including camera, Lidar and radars.

To increase the fidelity, scalability and controllability of our simulations,we employ the latest ML technologies such as large language models, foundational world models, and reconstructive methods trained on large-scale datasets with both generative and reconstructive technologies, as well as traditional rendering approaches.

In this hybrid role, you will report to a Senior Staff Engineering Manager. This role is for a high-level individual contributor. 

 You will:

• Join our world-class research engineering team and drive innovation in ultra-realistic sensor data and perception simulation for autonomous vehicles. You will develop the latest simulation technologies using 3D Gaussian Splatting, foundational models for sensor data generation and traditional 3D graphics techniques.
  
  
• Lead the deployment and scaling of sensor simulation to address Waymo's hardest challenges in a highly cross-functional environment. You will work closely with research, onboard representatives, systems engineering, data science and product to accelerate company objectives using sensor simulation and maximize impact.

 

• Work in close collaboration with Waymo's foundational AI research team to transfer State-of-The-Art research into scalable and production-ready solutions.
  
  

 

You Have:

• MS in Computer Science, Machine Learning (ML), Robotics, or similar technical field of study, or equivalent practical experience.
  
  
• Demonstrated experience as a Tech Lead in large cross-functional efforts with significant production impact.
  
  
• 2+ years of experience with machine learning-based 3D Reconstruction techniques, including 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) and Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF), depth estimation techniques OR traditional 3D reconstruction and rendering pipelines
  
  
• Fluency in Python, C++, with experience developing ML software using frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow and Jax/Flax
  
  

 

We Prefer:

• Experience with processing or simulating (Lidar, Camera, or MIMO Radar) sensor data.
  
  
• Experience with autonomous systems including robotics or autonomous vehicles (L4, L3+).
  
  
• Experienced with C++, in integrating ML models into a highly distributed production system
  
  
• Experience training large-scale models on GPU/TPU clusters.
• Management experience
  
  

#LI-Hybrid

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$281,000—$356,000 USD