Waymo Verified

Autonomous Vehicles, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Automotive

System Safety Engineer, Strategic Programs & Integration

Mountain View, CAHybridFull Time$241,000–$297,000 /yrPosted 1 month agoVisa sponsorship available

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Required skills

System Safety
Strategic Programs
Integration
Autonomous Driving Technology
Safety Goals
Safety Strategies
Safety Engineering Analyses
Regulatory Authorities
System Safety Engineering Principles
Risk Management

Nice to have

L4 autonomous driving systems
Commercial ADAS platforms
Robotics product commercialization
Consumer-facing vehicles
Decentralized fleet maintenance
Safety case development

Role summary

Waymo's Safety team is seeking a System Safety Engineer for Strategic Programs & Integration to enhance the safety of their autonomous driving technology. This hybrid role involves leading program planning, roadmapping, and defining OKRs for the System Safety organization. You will spearhead safety workstreams for strategic programs, translating vehicle goals into safety deliverables, and establishing safety baselines. Responsibilities include tracking safety readiness, standardizing processes, and serving as the primary safety interface to executive leadership. The role requires a BS/MS in a technical field with 10+ years of experience in technical program management or safety engineering in safety-critical domains, including knowledge of system safety principles and industry standards like ISO 26262.

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 Waymo Safety team works to promote and help to continuously improve the safety of Waymo’s fully autonomous driving technology. Our experts develop safety goals and strategies, and conduct safety engineering analyses to ensure safety is being considered throughout the design and development of our vehicles. The team develops and promotes safety strategies and policies for autonomous vehicles for its work with regulatory authorities, lawmakers, law enforcement and public and non-profit organizations. Our Safety Team also helps advise on compliance with applicable environmental, health, and safety regulations.

In this hybrid role, you will report to the Head of System Safety.

You will:

Lead end-to-end program planning, milestone roadmapping, and OKR definition across the entire System Safety organization, ensuring high-priority safety workstreams align with company-wide product launches

Spearhead System Safety workstreams for new, strategic programs across Onboard SW, Systems Engineering, Hardware, Ops Safety, and Product, translating high-level vehicle goals into actionable safety deliverables

Establish and execute the Safety Baseline and Delta approach for product expansions and novel product capabilities

Track and govern safety readiness criteria across multiple vehicle platforms, identifying critical-path bottlenecks and driving timely resolution

Partner with team leads to standardize safety processes, develop automated workflows and tracking dashboards (Jira/TaskFlow), and reduce execution overhead for safety engineers

Serve as the primary safety interface to executive program leadership, Product Management, Systems Engineering, and Fleet Operations, championing safety culture and synthesizing complex risk assessments into clear executive summaries

You have:

BS/MS in Engineering, Robotics, Computer Science, Systems Engineering, or related technical field (or equivalent practical experience) with 10+ years of technical program management or safety engineering experience in safety-critical domains

Working knowledge of system safety engineering principles, risk management, and industry standards (e.g., ISO 26262, ISO 21448/SOTIF, ISO 31000/31010, or MIL-STD-882)

Proven track record of managing complex, cross-functional technical programs from concept through validation, including resource allocation, schedule risk management, and executive reporting

Strong understanding of autonomous vehicle systems, software/hardware release lifecycles, and systems engineering Verification and Validation (V&V) methodologies

Demonstrated ability to influence and align diverse engineering, product, operations, and leadership teams in fast-paced, ambiguous environments

Experience establishing engineering workflows, requirements traceability, and project management frameworks using Jira, Buganizer/TaskFlow, or equivalent systems

We prefer:

Direct experience working with L4 autonomous driving systems, commercial ADAS platforms, or robotics product commercialization

Experience driving safety concepts or operational safety for consumer-facing vehicles, human-machine interface (HMI) transitions, or decentralized fleet maintenance

Hands-on experience with safety case development (Claims-Arguments-Evidence), STPA, HARA, or Probabilistic Risk Assessments (PRA)

Familiarity with data modeling, scripting (e.g., Python/SQL), and building automated metrics dashboards to monitor safety program health and risk exposure

Experience supporting regulatory briefings, safety waivers, or compliance documentation for emerging transportation technologies

Travel Requirements:

This role is expected to travel approximately 5%

In accordance with Washington state law, we are highlighting our comprehensive benefits package, which is available to all eligible US based employees. Benefits for this role include:

Health, dental, vision, life, disability insurance

Retirement Benefits: 401(k) with company match

Paid Time Off: 20 days of vacation per year, accruing at a rate of 6.15 hours per pay period for the first five years of employment

Sick Time: 40 hours/year (statutory, where applicable); 5 days/event (discretionary)

Maternity Leave (Short-Term Disability + Baby Bonding): 28-30 weeks

Baby Bonding Leave: 18 weeks

Holidays: 13 paid days per year

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$241,000—$297,000 USD

Sample Waymo interview questions

1
Design a data ingestion system
system designmedium
2
Design a simulation-based regression detection system for code changes
system designhard
3
Longest Substring with Two Distinct Characters Find the longest substring with at most two distinct characters. Input: s = "ccaabbb" Output: 5 Explanation: The substring "aabbb" contains exactly two distinct characters and has a maximum length of 5.
codingmedium
4
Alien Dictionary Order Derive the alien dictionary order from a sorted list of alien words. Input: words = ["z","x","z"] Output: "" (Empty String) Explanation: The letter 'z' cannot come before 'x' and then suddenly after 'x', creating a cycle and making the dictionary invalid.
codingmedium
5
Palindrome After Deleting One Character Determine if a string can be a palindrome after deleting at most one character. Input: s = "abc" Output: FALSE Explanation: Deleting any single character leaves either "ab", "bc", or "ac", none of which result in a valid palindrome.
codingmedium

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