Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with a mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they’re going. Since our start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has been focused on building the World’s Most Experienced Driver in hopes of improving the world's access to mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes. Our Waymo Driver powers Waymo One, our fully autonomous ride-hailing service, as well as Waymo Via, our trucking and local delivery service. To date, Waymo has driven over 20 million miles autonomously on public roads across 25 U.S. cities and conducted over 20 billion miles of simulation testing.
The mission of the Waymo Research team is to develop machine learning solutions addressing open problems in autonomous driving, towards the goal of the 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 perception, behavior prediction and reinforcement learning.
In this Research Scientist role, you will:
- Research new machine learning problems, models and algorithms
- Collaborate on deploying these models on the Waymo vehicles
- Initiate and support collaborations with Alphabet researchers on autonomous driving-related research topics
- We expect your scope to grow over time as you become an expert in some of the machine learning research areas above, and you’ll be initiating and leading increasingly ambitious new projects
At a minimum we’d like you to have:
- Ph.D. in Computer Science or related quantitative field, or B.S./M.S. in Computer Science or related quantitative field with 5+ years of relevant experience
- Experience as a self-directed engineer / research scientist who excels at driving new research ideas from conception and experimentation to productionization
- Strong knowledge of machine learning; experience with machine learning research and the experiment-launch-iterate cycle in one or more projects
- Outstanding technical leadership and communication skills to lead new research areas and multi-team collaborations
- Strong programming skills in C++ or Python
- Experience with distributed computing (MapReduce, Flume, etc)
It’s preferred if you have:
- Expertise in one or more of the following areas is a plus: deep learning, computer vision, robotics, reinforcement learning, behavior prediction, SLAM
- Research experience and publications in machine learning or related fields is a plus
- Experience of using TensorFlow or similar large-scale machine learning systems in production is a plus.
- Tech Lead experience is a plus
Note: The following is only applicable for roles hired in the US. As we keep the safety of our employees and our communities top of mind, COVID-19 vaccinations continue to be a critical prevention measure to help end the pandemic. Because of this, Waymo requires all US-based employees who perform work onsite for Waymo to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. If you are unable to be vaccinated due to a disability, medical condition or religious belief, Waymo will provide a reasonable accommodation consistent with federal, state, and local law.
We appreciate your interest in Waymo. Waymo is an equal employment opportunity employer. Waymo’s policy is not to discriminate against any applicant or employee based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, disability, military status, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by law. Waymo also prohibits harassment of applicants or employees based on any of these protected categories. Waymo will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal records in accordance with applicable law. Waymo also makes workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law.
