Technical Lead Manager, Perception Research

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 Manager.

You will:

• Lead and manage a team to build large-scale perception foundation models, powering many offboard and onboard applications for the Waymo Driver
• Set the technical direction for the team, develop the execution strategies, and align individual efforts with the overall strategies
• Develop a collaborative relationship with cross-functional teams across Waymo, including perception, simulation, and ML infrastructure
• Establish an inclusive culture for the team, enabling research innovations and delivering impactful results

You have:

• 2+ years of experience managing medium-size teams
• Track record in developing team culture and growing people
• 6+ years experience in deep learning research and productionisation

We prefer:

• Strong background in perception related domains, such as object detection, Transformer modeling, model scaling, self-supervised learning
• Good knowledge of LLM/VLM

#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.