Senior Software Engineer, Vehicle Interaction

Mountain View, CAHybridFull TimeSenior$213,000–$263,000 /yrPosted 1 month agoVisa sponsorship available

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Required skills

C++
Machine Learning
PyTorch
JAX
Reinforcement Learning
Imitation Learning
Closed-loop simulation
Production deployment
Robotics
Agent reasoning

Nice to have

Motion planning
Autonomous systems
Technical leadership
Project teams

Role summary

The Vehicle Interaction team is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to develop agent reasoning and motion planning algorithms for autonomous driving. This role involves designing, evaluating, and deploying learned interaction policies, collaborating cross-functionally, and integrating ML models into production. The ideal candidate will have a BS in a technical field, 5+ years of C++ software engineering experience, and hands-on experience building ML models with PyTorch or JAX, focusing on learned driving policies and production deployment. Experience in simulation, robotics, and autonomous systems is also valued.

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 Vehicle Interaction team tackles critical autonomous driving challenges, directly responsible for modeling agent interactions with other vehicles to advance our mission of safety and building the world's most trusted driver. The team develops agent reasoning and motion planning algorithms to resolve complex interactive scenarios—including lane changes, merges, unprotected maneuvers, and cut-ins. By combining core robotics principles with scalable, production-deployed machine learning models, the team enables the Driver to safely, predictably, and seamlessly navigate dynamic real-world environments.

In this hybrid role, you will report directly to the Technical Lead Manager.

You will:

Design, evaluate, and deploy learned interaction policies to handle complex navigation and yielding scenarios.

Collaborate cross-functionally at the intersection of prediction and planning, leveraging large-scale models to solve complex agent interaction problems.

Integrate learned models into closed-loop simulation environments, benchmark against rigorous safety metrics, and drive seamless transitions to production releases.

Focus on high-impact product outcomes, making pragmatic engineering decisions to accelerate the shift from rule-based heuristics to scalable, data-driven policies.

You have:

BS in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

5+ years of software engineering experience developing high-performance, efficient C++ code.

Hands-on experience building ML models, including expertise in learned driving policies (RL/imitation learning), PyTorch or JAX, closed-loop simulation evaluation, and a proven track record of shipping models to production.

Proven capability to collaborate effectively across cross-functional engineering teams.

We prefer:

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

Demonstrated software engineering expertise in motion planning or related autonomous systems problems.

Experience building, training, and benchmarking machine learning systems at scale.

Technical leadership experience guiding engineers or leading small project teams.

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

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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