Principal Software Engineer (AI)

TL;DR

Principal Software Engineer (AI): Architecting and leading the development of a unified, large-scale AI platform for autonomous driving with an accent on foundation model integration, distributed training, and codebase consolidation. Focus on defining technical vision, driving ML productivity, and collaborating with Google DeepMind to accelerate the deployment of the Waymo Driver.

Location: Must be based in Mountain View or San Francisco, California

Salary: $349,000–$431,000 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

• Define and drive the technical roadmap for the ML platform, including data pipelines and model architecture.
• Lead the unification of fragmented foundation model codebases into a production-hardened, shared repository.
• Serve as the primary technical interface between Waymo and Google DeepMind for model integration.
• Architect efficient large-scale distributed training and distillation setups for onboard student models.
• Provide technical mentorship and drive alignment on architectural decisions across multiple teams.
• Instill a culture of efficiency in model development and resource utilization.

Requirements

• Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science or a related field.
• 12+ years of software engineering experience, with 8+ years in large-scale ML systems and AI infrastructure.
• Deep expertise in Python, C++, JAX, and TensorFlow.
• Extensive experience with large-scale distributed training on TPUs/GPUs.
• Proven track record of architecting complex, high-impact ML platforms.
• Strong communication skills to articulate technical vision and influence stakeholders.

Nice to have

• Experience with multimodal and generative models.
• Background in autonomous vehicle systems or robotics.
• Contributions to open-source ML frameworks.
• Experience with simulation systems.

Culture & Benefits

• Participation in discretionary annual bonus program.
• Equity incentive plan.
• Comprehensive company benefits program.
• Opportunity to work on cutting-edge autonomous driving technology.