Principal Software Engineer, Simulator

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.

Software Engineering builds the brains of Waymo's fully autonomous driving technology. Our software allows the Waymo Driver to perceive the world around it, make the right decision for every situation, and deliver people safely to their destinations. We think deeply and solve complex technical challenges in areas like robotics, perception, decision-making and deep learning, while collaborating with hardware and systems engineers. If you're a software engineer or researcher who's curious and passionate about Level 4 autonomous driving, we'd like to meet you.

The Simulator Team at Waymo builds state-of-the-art simulations of realistic environments for evaluating, training and scaling the Waymo Driver. Your team will be a diverse, and collaborative group of machine learning (ML) engineers, software engineers and data scientists. We develop industry-leading simulation solutions using advanced ML algorithms that measure and enhance the performance of the Waymo Driver. We achieve those goals by jointly modeling the real world, including realistic agents (vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists), static road elements, traffic control systems, weather conditions, and the full sensor suite including camera, lidar and radars.

We enhance our simulations' fidelity, scalability, and controllability by leveraging modern machine learning. This includes large language models, foundational world models, and reconstructive methods, all trained on datasets using both generative and reconstructive AI, alongside traditional rendering techniques.

You will report to the Sr Director of Engineering and Head of the Simulator organization.

You will :

• Drive innovation in simulation for autonomous vehicles. You will develop the latest simulation technologies using 3D Gaussian Splatting, foundational models for sensor data generation and traditional 3D graphics techniques
• Lead the deployment and scaling of simulation to address Waymo's hardest challenges in a collaborative environment
• You will work with onboard representatives, systems engineering, data science and product to accelerate our goals using simulation and maximize impact
• Work in close collaboration with Waymo's foundational AI research team and ML Infra teams to transfer research into scalable and production-ready solutions
• Champion scientific and statistical rigor in embodied AI applications
• Ensure understanding within simulation on goals and priorities
• Independently manage the entire lifecycle of important product innovations, from prototyping to productization, scaling simulations and data processing systems

You have :

We prefer :

#LI-Hybrid

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

$332,000 — $421,000 USD