Senior Research Scientist, Waymo
World Action Modeling
$213-263k
Plus discretionary annual bonus program and equity incentive plan
Autonomous driving technology
Open for applications
Autonomous driving technology
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$213-263k
Plus discretionary annual bonus program and equity incentive plan
1001+ employees
Company mission
To make it simpler and safer for people to move things and themselves around.
Role
Who you are
- PhD degree in Computer Science or a similar discipline, or an equivalent amount of deep learning research experience, with 5+ years of experience with Deep Learning and Generative Models
- Strong coding skills in Python and strong familiarity with major ML Frameworks (JAX, Tensorflow, Pytorch)
- Strong familiarity with AI tools in day to day work
- Experience in large-scale distributed training and different forms of parallelism
- Experience in generative models for domains such as world models, images, videaos, 3D, human animation, traffic, and/or simulation, using techniques such as diffusion and/or autoregressive models
Desirable
- Publications at top-tier conferences like CVPR/ICCV/ECCV/ICLR/ICML/NeurIPS/IROS/CoRL etc
- Substantial involvement in and contributions to high impact industry AI projects
- First-hand experience in, and direct contributions to training large world models / world-action models
- Familiarity with Reinforcement Learning in simulation environments
What the job involves
- This role follows a hybrid work schedule and reports to a Staff Research Scientist / Tech Lead Manager
- Design and implement generative world action modeling solutions to simulate future world states / observations and generate policies for embodied agents (autonomous vehicles)
- Develop and maintain scalable data pipelines to process data from multiple sources
- Design and implement evaluation strategies for world action models
- Study and analyze different behaviors of this model, such as scaling efficacy, downstream quality implications, model architecture design ablations, etc
- Conducting cutting-edge research and potentially communicating research findings to the wider academic community via technical blog posts, technical reports and/or publications
- Collaborate inclusively across Waymo/Alphabet to apply developed techniques to Waymo products
Our take
Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car company, is changing the way people get around, Its robotaxis, which don't need a human driver, are already operating in cities like Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Austin. Soon, Waymo will expand to Detroit, Las Vegas, and San Diego, showing just how autonomous cars are moving from experiments to real-world transportation.
The company has already completed over 10M fully driverless rides and driven more than 100M miles. Its cars use advanced sensors and AI to navigate streets safely, while partnerships with Uber and DoorDash show that Waymo's technology works for both passengers and deliveries. And it's feeling ambitious too, hoping to offer one million trips per week by the end of 2026.
Even with competitors like Tesla and Zoox, Waymo is leading the autonomous ride-hailing market. Its cars have fewer crashes and keep passengers safer than traditional vehicles. With international plans for London and Japan, Waymo isn't just growing in the US, its setting its sights on shaping the future of transportation worldwide.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-1% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Feb 2026
$16bn
LATE VC
Aug 2024
$5.6bn
SERIES C
Total funding: $27.1bn
Company benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and dependents
- Employee assistance programs focused on mental health
- Personalized workplace adjustments for diverse needs and abilities, including physical, mental, and neurodivergent considerations
- Access to mental health apps
- Onsite wellness centers
- Second medical opinion for you and your loved ones
- Medical advocacy program for transgender employees
- Counseling services
- Support programs including menopause benefit
- Competitive compensation
- Regular bonus and equity performance grant opportunities
- Generous 401(k) and regional retirement plans
- Annual cross-company compensation review and pay equity analysis
- 1-on-1 financial coaching
- Fertility and growing family assistance
- Parental leave and baby bonding leave
- Caregiver leave
- Elder care and support
- Backup childcare
- Survivor income benefit
- Paid time off, including vacation, bereavement, sick leave, parental leave, disability, and holidays
- Jury duty leave
- Military leave
- Hybrid work model with remote work opportunities also available
- Educational reimbursement
- Peer learning and coaching platform
- Donation matching programs
- Employee resource groups
- Volunteer hours
- Internal community groups and local culture clubs
- Inspiring spaces to work, recharge, and collaborate with fellow Waymonauts
- On-site meals and snacks
- Fitness centers, massage programs, and ergonomic support
- On-demand fitness, wellbeing, and cooking classes
- Commuter benefits
Company HQ
Mountain View, CA
Leadership
Dmitri Dolgov
(Co-CEO)Dmitri joined Waymo in 2016 as CTO, becoming Co-CEO in 2021. Prior to this, he spent nearly 8 years at Google as a Distinguished Software Engineer and 2 years at Toyota Research Institute as a Senior Research Scientist.
Tekedra N. Mawakana
(Co-CEO)Tekedra joined Waymo in 2017 as the Global Head of Policy, holding various roles before becoming Co-CEO in 2021. Previously, she was the VP of Global Government Relations and Public Policy at eBay and VP and Deputy General Counsel of GLobal Public Policy at Yahoo.
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