Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Driver Understanding and Evaluation

Job Summary

The DUE Machine Learning team at Waymo is seeking researchers and software engineers with a passion for developing machine learning techniques for evaluation systems on autonomous vehicles. This role involves designing, developing, and deploying cutting-edge 4D world models and generative systems for ultra-realistic and controllable sensor and semantics generation for simulation use cases.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development and deployment of cutting-edge 4D world models and generative systems for ultra-realistic and controllable sensor and semantics generation for simulation use cases at Waymo.
• Architect and implement scalable and robust ML pipelines for training, evaluating, and deploying large-scale generative models into our simulation infrastructure, including techniques like model distillation and quantization.
• Build and scale production-ready video generation techniques (e.g., Diffusion, Flow Matching) to create dynamic and interactive simulation environments.
• Apply Vision Language Models (VLMs) to enhance the semantic understanding and controllability of our world simulation products.
• Partner with world-class research teams across Waymo and Alphabet to leverage state-of-the-art research in 4D world modeling and generative AI into robust, production-ready solutions.
• Mentor and provide technical guidance to other engineers on the team.

Requirements

• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in ML engineering and applied Deep Learning, with a strong portfolio of shipped products or publication record.
• Proven experience in developing and training large-scale generative models for video generation (e.g., Diffusion models, Flow Matching) or Vision Language Models (VLMs) and their applications.
• Deep expertise in 3D World Modeling or 3D computer vision.
• Familiarity with 3D reconstruction and rendering techniques (e.g., 3D Gaussian Splatting).
• Strong programming skills in Python and experience with ML frameworks such as Jax/Flax, PyTorch or Tensorflow.

Preferred

• PhD and a strong track record of delivering impactful ML products in 3D generative models, world models, or video generation.
• Experience in simulating sensor data (Camera, Lidar, Radar) and/or semantic scenes.
• Experience with autonomous systems, robotics, or autonomous vehicle simulation.
• Experience in training and optimizing large scale models on GPU/TPU clusters for efficient serving.
• Experience in C++ for production systems.

Benefits

We offer a competitive salary range of $204,000—$259,000 USD, a comprehensive benefits program, and participation in Waymo’s discretionary annual bonus program and equity incentive plan. Employees are also eligible for generous Company benefits.