Staff Research Scientist (AI)

TL;DR

Staff Research Scientist (AI): Developing state-of-the-art Multimodal LLMs and World models for autonomous driving perception with an accent on sensor fusion (Camera, LiDAR, Radar) and scalable training pipelines. Focus on designing evaluation frameworks, analyzing model scaling efficacy, and conducting cutting-edge research to advance the Waymo Driver.

Location: Must be based in or able to work from Mountain View, San Francisco, New York City, or Kirkland

Salary: $251,000–$310,000 USD

Company

Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company dedicated to building the world's most trusted driver to improve mobility and safety.

What you will do

• Research and develop Multimodal LLMs and World models for 3D perception.
• Integrate emerging AI research into Waymo’s sensor understanding models.
• Design and implement scalable data pipelines for training and evaluation.
• Analyze model behaviors, including scaling efficacy and architecture design.
• Collaborate with cross-functional engineering and research teams to share best practices.
• Communicate research findings through technical reports and academic publications.

Requirements

• PhD or Masters in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or Robotics with 4+ years of industry or post-doc research experience.
• Demonstrated original contributions via high-impact publications or significant open-source projects.
• Proficiency in scalable, distributed model training (Data parallel, FSDP).
• Experience working with complex, globally distributed inference infrastructure.
• Must be eligible to work in the United States.

Nice to have

• PhD with a research focus on Reinforcement Learning or Multi-Modal learning.
• Experience deploying Reinforcement Learning infrastructure for on-policy learning.
• Expertise in generative models (diffusion or autoregressive) for 3D, video, or image domains.

Culture & Benefits

• Comprehensive health, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance.
• Retirement benefits including 401(k) with company match.
• Generous paid time off including 20 days of vacation and 13 paid holidays.
• Extensive parental leave policies including maternity and baby bonding leave.
• Participation in discretionary annual bonus program and equity incentive plan.