Senior Staff Software Engineer, Perception Data

Waymo LLC

Job Overview

Location

California, USA

Job Type

Full-time

Full Job Description

📋 Description

• Join Waymo, a pioneer in autonomous driving technology, as a Senior Staff Software Engineer on the Perception Data team. Our mission is to make mobility safer and more accessible by developing the world's most trusted driver. Since our inception as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, we have accumulated over 100 million miles of real-world driving experience and billions more in simulation, powering a fully autonomous ride-hail service and exploring diverse product applications.
• The Perception Data team is at the forefront of shaping the future of autonomous driving by owning the strategy and technical direction for all data used to train and evaluate the Waymo Driver's perception system. We are responsible for the entire data lifecycle, from ingestion to high-quality training sets, building automated systems that transform vast amounts of sensor data into actionable insights.
• Our work is critical in bridging the gap between raw sensor feeds and sophisticated machine learning models. We tackle complex challenges such as developing advanced active learning loops and enabling open-vocabulary modeling, ensuring our perception systems can understand and react to the world with unparalleled accuracy.
• By creating a unified ecosystem for data ingestion, curation, and evaluation, we accelerate the development of foundation models and next-generation perception stacks. This seamless integration allows for rapid iteration and improvement of the Waymo Driver's ability to perceive its environment.
• We foster deep collaboration across Machine Learning, Infrastructure, and Evaluation teams to solve some of the most challenging data problems in the field. Our focus on ensuring our models can reliably handle the long-tail of rare and critical events is paramount to safety.
• As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in defining the organizational technical strategy for the Perception Data team. This includes architecting a 2-3 year vision for the entire Perception organization, focusing on unifying the machine learning lifecycle into an automated and continuous flywheel.
• You will drive high-stakes architectural decisions that have a significant impact across multiple organizations, including Perception, Machine Learning, and Infrastructure. Your expertise will guide the development of systems that are both scalable and robust.
• Establishing engineering excellence, defining API standards, and setting system reliability bars across the Data, Evaluation, and Model Lifecycle teams will be a key responsibility. Ensuring these distinct yet interconnected systems operate seamlessly is crucial for our success.
• You will be instrumental in solving the most ambiguous and complex data challenges. This includes leading the technical execution on initiatives like designing and accelerating active learning loops that automatically curate and learn from rare, long-tail events within millions of miles of driving data, minimizing the need for manual intervention.
• Beyond technical contributions, you will serve as a key mentor to Staff and Senior engineers across the wider organization. Your guidance will help grow the next generation of technical leaders and foster a culture of rigorous design review and continuous learning.
• This hybrid role offers the opportunity to make a profound impact on the future of autonomous driving, working with cutting-edge technology and a world-class team. You will report to a Director of Engineering and contribute to a mission that has the potential to save millions of lives.
• Your responsibilities will encompass the full spectrum of data engineering and ML infrastructure, from understanding the intricacies of sensor data (Lidar, Radar, Camera) to optimizing large-scale distributed systems. You will leverage your deep expertise in big data technologies and ML operations to build the foundational systems that power the Waymo Driver.
• We are looking for an individual who can not only architect complex systems but also influence without authority, aligning diverse teams and stakeholders towards a common technical vision. Your ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly and effectively will be essential.
• This role is ideal for a seasoned engineer who thrives on solving challenging problems, driving technical strategy, and mentoring others in a fast-paced, innovative environment. You will be a key architect of the data pipelines and ML infrastructure that enable the Waymo Driver to navigate the world safely and reliably.
• You will contribute to the continuous improvement of our data quality, model performance, and operational efficiency, ensuring that Waymo remains at the forefront of autonomous driving technology. Your work will directly influence the capabilities and safety of our self-driving system.
• The scope of your influence will extend to shaping the tools and processes that enable our engineers to build, train, and deploy machine learning models at an unprecedented scale, driving the evolution of autonomous vehicle perception.

🎯 Requirements

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a technical leadership role driving strategy for large-scale distributed systems or ML infrastructure.
• Proven track record of architecting complex, multi-component platforms (e.g., connecting data ingestion, training pipelines, and evaluation loops) that serve 100+ internal engineers or millions of external users.
• Deep, hands-on mastery of distributed data processing (Spark, Flume, Beam) combined with a strong understanding of ML lifecycles (training, inference, embeddings, fine-tuning).
• Ability to read/write/debug complex C++ and Python code at a system level (e.g., optimizing memory usage in distributed jobs or designing high-performance C++ serving layers).
• Demonstrated ability to align multiple Principals, Directors, and Staff engineers across different organizations (e.g., Infra vs. Product) toward a unified technical direction.
• Experience building the data infrastructure specifically for training Large Language Models (LLMs) or Vision-Language Models (VLMs) at scale.

🏖️ Benefits

• Competitive salary range: $281,000 - $356,000 USD
• Discretionary annual bonus program
• Equity incentive plan
• Generous Company benefits program
• Opportunity to work on cutting-edge autonomous driving technology
• Mentorship and professional development opportunities

Skills & Technologies

Python

Node.js

Kubernetes

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Senior

Remote

Degree Required

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Waymo LLC

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About Waymo LLC

Waymo LLC, originally Google's self-driving car project, develops autonomous driving technology and operates a commercial robotaxi service. The company creates hardware and software stacks for vehicles to navigate public roads without human input, using LiDAR, cameras, and machine learning. Waymo One offers rides to the public in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, while Waymo Via provides freight trucking services. Alphabet Inc. owns Waymo, which partners with automakers such as Jaguar Land Rover and Stellantis to integrate its Driver platform into production vehicles, aiming to improve road safety and expand mobility.

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