Research Scientist, Waymo
Prediction & Planning
$204-259k
+ Discretionary annual bonus program + Equity incentive plan
Autonomous driving technology
Be an early applicant
Autonomous driving technology
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$204-259k
+ Discretionary annual bonus program + 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
- BS in Computer Science, ML, Robotics, similar technical field of study, or equivalent practical experience
- Added Demonstrated contributions to the ML community through publications, open-source projects, or significant industry impact
- Hands-on experience with modern deep learning libraries (eg: TensorFlow, JAX, Pytorch)
- Proficient programming skills (eg: Python, C/C++)
- Strong analytical and debugging skills
- 5+ years of experience in Machine Learning modeling and/or Autonomous Vehicles
Desirable
- MS or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field
- Publications in top-tier conferences such as ICML, NeurIPS, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICLR, IROS, CoRL, ACL, or EMNLP
- Prior software development or ML research industry experience (including internships)
- General software engineering experience solving motion planning or related robotics problems
- Experience applying or evaluating ML-based systems in production environments
- Experience with performance optimization of deep models, including with respect to specific hardware architectures
What the job involves
- The Predictive Planning team (PrePlan) develops and deploys state-of-the-art machine learning solutions that predict the future state of the world and plan the Waymo Driver’s behavior
- Our mission is to transform Waymo's unprecedented scale of driving data into robust, generalizable, and performant deep neural networks
- These models enable the autonomous vehicle to navigate complex environments safely and efficiently
- In this hybrid role, you will report to a manager on our PrePlan team
- Team matching happens after you've completed your onsite interviews
- Develop the next-generation ML-powered prediction and planning system to enhance the performance and capabilities of the ML driver and support the rapid scaling of Waymo’s business
- Frame open-ended, real-world challenges as well-defined ML problems; research, develop, and apply cutting-edge ML techniques, including foundation models and reinforcement learning, for the planning and prediction tasks of autonomous vehicles
- Collaborate with world-class researchers, engineers and product owners to create safe, smooth planning behaviors for all road users and to meet product requirements
- Develop and evaluate large models, and integrate them into Waymo’s production planning software for real-world applications through close partnership with the Planner and Research teams
Our take
Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company that began as the Google self-driving car project in 2009. After initial development, it secured permits to deploy autonomous ride-hailing services in cities including Phoenix and San Francisco, but has recently hit a major bump in the road with safety concerns that resulted in a recall of over 400 self-driving cars.
With the autonomous driving industry already besieged by setbacks and public distrust, this development does Waymo no favours. That said, as an industry leader there remains the possibility it will see out the storm, but massive attention will need to be given to rebuilding trust with consumers if this is to be the case.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-1% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)
Aug 2024
$5.6bn
SERIES C
Jun 2021
$2.5bn
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Total funding: $11.1bn
Company HQ
Mountain View, CA
Leadership
Dmitri Dolgov
(Co-CEO, not founder)Former CTO of the company. After a PhD at the University of Michigan, they worked as a Stanford Postdoctoral Researcher before moving to the Toyota Research Institute. They also spent 8 years at Google as a Software Engineer.
Tekedra N. Mawakana
(Co-CEO, not founder)Has worked at Waymo since 2017, as Global Head of Policy then CXO then COO before becoming Co-CEO. They are on the Board of Advisors at Operator Collective, Board of Directors at Intuit, and an Advisor for Boom Supersonic.
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