2025 Summer Intern, PhD, Planner Selection - ML Engineer

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.

Software Engineering builds the brains of Waymo's fully autonomous driving technology. Our software allows the Waymo Driver to perceive the world around it, make the right decision for every situation, and deliver people safely to their destinations. We think deeply and solve complex technical challenges in areas like robotics, perception, decision-making and deep learning, while collaborating with hardware and systems engineers. If you're a software engineer or researcher who's curious and passionate about Level 4 autonomous driving, we'd like to meet you.

Waymo interns work with leaders in the industry on projects that deliver significant impact to the company. We believe learning is a two-way street: applying your knowledge while providing you with opportunities to expand your skillset. Interns are an important part of our culture and our recruiting pipeline. Join us at Waymo for a fun and rewarding internship!

This internship will be based on-site at our headquarters in Mountain View, CA.

You will:

• Collaborate with researchers and engineers to design, develop, and implement reinforcement/imitation learning models for autonomous vehicle planning.
• Integrate these models into our production planning system, ensuring seamless functionality and optimized performance.
• Analyze model performance and identify areas for improvement.
• Stay up-to-date on the latest advancements in autonomous driving and machine learning.

You have:

• Currently pursuing a PhD degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field.
• Experience with imitation and/or reinforcement learning
• Proficient in Python and deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow or JAX.

We prefer:

• Publications in top-tier robotics conferences such as ICML, NeurIPS, IROS, CoRL, or RSS.
• Experience in the autonomous driving domain, including areas like motion planning, perception, or control.
• Familiarity with software engineering best practices and version control systems.

Note: This will be a hybrid onsite internship position. We will accept resumes on a rolling basis until the role is filled. To be in consideration for multiple roles, you will need to apply to each one individually - please apply to the top 3 roles you are interested in.

The expected hourly rate for this full-time position is listed below. Interns are also eligible to participate in the Company’s generous benefits programs, subject to eligibility requirements.Hourly PhD Pay$60.10—$60.10 USD