Staff Machine Learning Engineer(TLM), Driver Understanding and Evaluation

Location: On site in Mountain View, California, United States

Salary: $238,000–$302,000 USD annual base salary, plus eligibility for an annual bonus, equity incentive plan, and company benefits.

Company

Waymo develops autonomous driving technology and operates a fully autonomous ride-hail service powered by the Waymo Driver.

What you will do

• Lead the development of deep learning and machine learning models for human-led triage and high-volume workflow automation.
• Design and build generative AI, LLM, and VLM solutions for self-driving behavior analysis and anomaly detection.
• Develop reinforcement learning systems based on human-preference data collection and evaluation.
• Build user feedback analysis tools for classification, sentiment assessment, comment summarization, root cause analysis, and trend analysis.
• Oversee production, scaling, and optimization of machine learning models evaluating Waymo’s vehicle fleet.
• Set technical direction and collaborate with product managers, technical program managers, research, prediction, planning, and senior leadership teams.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, robotics, machine learning, or a similar technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 7+ years of hands-on experience in machine learning projects.
• Strong coding experience in C++ and/or Python.
• Experience with foundational models, VLMs, or deep learning.
• Experience with TensorFlow, PyTorch, or Hugging Face Transformers, including deep learning models and machine learning deployment at scale.

Nice to have

• Master’s or Ph.D. degree in computer science or a related quantitative field specializing in machine learning.
• 10+ years of hands-on machine learning experience.
• Experience with Transformers, generative AI, LLMs, and VLMs.
• Experience building applied machine learning tools, including MLOps, evaluation and validation techniques, and model performance optimization.
• Large-scale data processing and analytical skills.

Culture & Benefits

• Eligibility for a discretionary annual bonus program.
• Equity incentive plan and company benefits program, subject to eligibility requirements.
• Work focused on autonomous driving evaluation, simulation, and large-scale machine learning infrastructure.