Tech Lead Manager, Foundation Models

Job Summary

The Waymo AI Foundations team is seeking a leader to manage a team building large-scale foundation models, powering various applications for the Waymo Driver. The role involves setting technical direction, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and fostering a culture of innovation.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage a team to build large-scale foundation models
• Powers many offboard and onboard applications for the Waymo Driver
• Develop the technical direction for the team
• Align individual efforts with the overall strategies
• Establish a collaborative relationship with cross-functional teams across Waymo, including simulation, planner, semantics, and ML infrastructure
• Establish an inclusive culture for the team, enabling research innovations and delivering impactful results

Requirements

• 2+ years of experience managing medium-size teams
• Track record in developing team culture and growing people
• 6+ years experience in deep learning research or applied research
• Technical experience working with LLMs / VLMs or world models
• We prefer strong background in foundation model related domains, such as pretraining, mid-training, post-training, Transformer modeling, model scaling, self-supervised learning
• Experience working with productionizing deep learning models

Qualifications

• Strong background in foundation model related domains
• Pretraining, mid-training, post-training, Transformer modeling, model scaling, self-supervised learning
• Experience working with productionizing deep learning models

Skills

• Strong leadership skills
• Excellent communication and collaboration abilities
• Experience with large-scale model development and deployment
• Knowledge of reinforcement learning, learning from demonstration, generative modeling, Bayesian inference, hierarchical learning, and robust evaluation

Benefits

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