Machine Learning Engineer, Prediction & Planning (Autonomous Vehicles)

Location: Hybrid role associated with Mountain View, California, and San Francisco, California; US-based positions

Salary: $175,000–$215,000 USD base annually, plus potential annual bonus, equity incentives, 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

• Develop ML-powered prediction and planning systems for autonomous vehicles.
• Frame real-world driving challenges as machine learning problems and apply deep learning, foundation models, and reinforcement learning.
• Develop and evaluate large models for prediction and planning tasks.
• Integrate models into production planning software for real-world autonomous driving applications.
• Collaborate with researchers, engineers, product owners, and planner teams to create safe and smooth behavior for road users.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a similar technical field.
• 2+ years of experience in machine learning modeling and/or autonomous vehicles.
• Contributions to the ML community through publications, open-source projects, or significant industry impact.
• Hands-on experience with TensorFlow, JAX, or PyTorch.
• Proficient programming skills in Python and C/C++, along with strong analytical and debugging skills.

Nice to have

• Master’s or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field.
• Publications in leading machine learning, computer vision, robotics, or NLP conferences.
• Software engineering experience with motion planning or related robotics problems.
• Experience applying or evaluating ML systems in production.
• Experience optimizing deep models for specific hardware architectures.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid work arrangement.
• Collaboration with researchers, engineers, and product owners on autonomous driving systems.
• Eligibility for a discretionary annual bonus, equity incentive plan, and company benefits program.

Hiring process

• Team matching takes place after onsite interviews.