In this hybrid role, you will report to a Principal Scientist.
You will:- Participate in Waymo's Foundation World Model post-training and evaluation
- Research and develop cutting edge RL and Distillation techniques for Autonomous Vehicle Trajectory Planning
- Integrate emerging research from the broader AI community into Waymo's internal RL infrastructure, conducting rigorous ablations to identify and scale the most promising methods
- Partner with engineering and research teams across Waymo to share recipes, techniques, and post-training best practices to accelerate our collective know-how
You have:- PhD or Masters in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a similar technical field; with 3+ years of industry or post-doc research experience in Reinforcement Learning or Foundation Models
- Demonstration of original contributions to the field through high-impact publications (ArXiv, peer-reviewed conferences like NeurIPS/ICLR/CVPR), technical blog posts, or significant open-source contributions
- Proficiency in implementing model training flows in a scalable, distributed and performant manner such as Data parallel, FSDP and other sharding approaches
- A willingness to work with complexity of globally distributed inference infrastructure
We prefer:- PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or Robotics, with a research focus on Reinforcement Learning, Foundation Models, or Multi-Modal learning
- Extensive experience designing and deploying Reinforcement Learning infrastructure, specifically for on-policy learning or alignment with human preferences
- A consistent history of original contributions to the AI community, evidenced by first-author publications at top-tier venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICRA) or maintaining significant open-source ML projects
- Experience with large scale (many-machine) training infrastructure and techniques for inference with large models such as model sharding/tensor-parallel
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
Please note that Waymo may not be able to employ remotely in all locations. Please speak with your recruiter about your preferred location for remote work when you begin the interview process
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
$204,000-$259,000 USD
