Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Predictive Planner, Systems Arch

Waymo
Mountain View +1 more
On-site

In the 12 months to 30 Jun 2026, Waymo filed 11 H-1B positions titled "Machine Learning Engineer". Source: U.S. Department of Labor, LCA disclosure data. A record of filings already made, not a commitment to sponsor.

Who this role is best for

A natural match if you have experience with ML and autonomous vehicle systems.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with 4+ years of ML or autonomous vehicle systems experience and strong deployment skills
    — “4+ years of experience in Machine Learning modeling and/or Autonomous Vehicles systems”
  • Individuals who have worked on motion planning or robotics problems in production environments
    — “General software engineering experience solving motion planning or related robotics problems”
  • Professionals with deep learning expertise and a track record of building robust models
    — “transforming Waymo's unprecedented scale of driving data into robust, generalizable, and performant deep neural networks”

Things to consider

  • Candidates should be prepared for a high level of collaboration across multiple teams
    — “Collaborate with researchers, product area owners and engineers to develop safe, smooth planning behavior for all road users”

How to stand out

  • Highlight experience deploying ML models in real-world systems or on hardware platforms
    — “deploy them in the real world on production vehicles”
  • Emphasize contributions to data infrastructure or model evaluation systems
    — “Design and build the necessary architectures, algorithms, pipelines and evaluation systems on Google's extensive data infrastructure”
  • Showcase a history of working on complex, safety-critical systems in autonomous vehicles
    — “develop safe, smooth planning behavior for all road users”
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · Company

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • robust machine learning models
  • safe and efficient autonomous driving
Typical background
machine learningautonomous vehicles

Skills & requirements

Required

Deep LearningModel DeploymentData InfrastructureMotion PlanningAutonomous Vehicle Systems

Preferred

Performance OptimizationHardware Architecture

Stack & domain

TensorFlowJAXPyTorchPythonC/c++Motion PlanningAutonomous VehiclesMachine Learning

About the role

Original posting from Waymo

Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the world's most trusted driver. Since its start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has focused on building the Waymo Driver—The World's Most Experienced Driver™—to improve access to mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes. The Waymo Driver powers Waymo’s fully autonomous ride-hail service and can also be applied to a range of vehicle platforms and product use cases. The Waymo Driver has provided over ten million rider-only trips, enabled by its experience autonomously driving over 100 million miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 15+ U.S. states.

The Predictive Planning team (PrePlan) develops and deploys state-of-the-art machine learning solutions that predict the future state of the world and plan the Waymo Driver’s behavior. Our mission is to transform Waymo's unprecedented scale of driving data into robust, generalizable, and performant deep neural networks. These models enable the autonomous vehicle to navigate complex environments safely and efficiently.

The system architecture team handles the onboard contract of the model with the system, including kinematics, interfaces and representations. Our team’s mission is to work across the stack, building the best setup for the model to drive. We tackle this through projects in data, modeling, metrics, and the overall planner system.

In this role, you will report to a Technical Lead Manager. 

You will:

Tackle challenging real-world problems with ML and engineering solutions.

Use state of the art techniques to design and build ML models, deploy them in the real world on production vehicles

Design and build the necessary architectures, algorithms, pipelines and evaluation systems on Google's extensive data infrastructure

Collaborate with researchers, product area owners and engineers to develop safe, smooth planning behavior for all road users & deliver product requirements.

You have:

Bachelors in Computer Science, ML, Robotics, similar technical field of study, or equivalent practical experience

Hands-on experience with modern deep learning libraries (eg: TensorFlow, JAX, Pytorch) 

Proficient programming skills (eg: Python, C/C++)

Strong analytical and problem solving skills

4+ years of experience in Machine Learning modeling and/or Autonomous Vehicles systems

We prefer:

MS or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field

Publications in top-tier conferences such as ICML, NeurIPS,  CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICLR, IROS, CoRL, ACL, or EMNLP

Prior software development or ML research industry experience (including internships)

General software engineering experience solving motion planning or related robotics problems

Experience applying or evaluating ML-based systems in production environments

Experience with performance optimization of deep models, including with respect to specific hardware architectures

The expected base salary range for this full-time position across US locations is listed below. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors, including exact work location, experience, relevant training and education, and skill level. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the role location or, if the role can be performed remote, the specific salary range for your preferred location, during the hiring process. 

Waymo employees are also eligible to participate in Waymo’s discretionary annual bonus program, equity incentive plan, and generous Company benefits program, subject to eligibility requirements. 

Salary Range$213,000—$263,000 USD

Source: Waymo careers

Similar roles

More roles at Waymo