Waymo · 9 hours ago
Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Computer Vision/VLM
San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Hybrid
Mid, Senior Level
$204K/yr - $259K/yr
4+ years expWaymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the world's most trusted driver. The Senior Machine Learning Engineer will develop and train advanced computer vision models and implement scalable AI frameworks to enhance the Waymo Driver's performance and capabilities.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)AutomotiveAutonomous VehiclesSensorTransportation
Responsibilities
Develop and train state-of-the-art computer vision / multimodal models (e.g., Gemini) to extract the rich semantic information (e.g., object attributes, scene properties, interaction dynamics) required by the AI agent
Design and implement a scalable AI agent framework that integrates large foundation models (e.g., Gemini) with the outputs of our perception models and internal knowledge bases
Develop and apply Fine-tuning and Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques to create a "data flywheel," continuously improving the system's captioning and reasoning abilities through automated feedback
Develop and prototype novel prompting strategies for Vision-Language Models (VLMs) to elicit complex, causal reasoning about driving scenarios
Collaborate closely with the ML Infra, Perception, Behavior, and AI Foundation teams to define data requirements and integrate the captioning system into the broader ML development lifecycle
Own the full system lifecycle, from advanced model development and prototyping to production deployment and scaling for massive data generation
Qualification
Required
Master's degree in Computer Science, or a related technical field
4+ years of hands-on experience training and shipping deep learning models for computer vision tasks (e.g., detection, segmentation, video understanding) using Python and frameworks like PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow
1+ years of demonstrated experience working with large language models (LLMs) or vision-language models (VLMs) in areas such as fine-tuning, prompting, or Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
Strong software engineering fundamentals, including designing scalable and reliable systems
Experience building and managing large-scale data processing pipelines for ML training
Proven ability to work autonomously and lead complex technical projects in a fast-paced R&D environment
Preferred
PhD in Computer Science, or a related technical field
Publication record in top-tier AI conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR)
Hands-on experience with Reinforcement Learning, especially RLHF, RLAIF, or applying RL to language/agentic tasks
Experience with modern techniques in self-supervised, weakly-supervised, or multi-task learning for perception
Experience building with AI agent frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex) or developing autonomous agentic systems
Familiarity with the challenges of multimodal perception in robotics or autonomous driving
A track record of impactful cross-functional collaboration
Benefits
Waymo’s discretionary annual bonus program
Equity incentive plan
Generous Company benefits program
Company
Waymo
Waymo is a mobility technology company that improves transportation by developing self-driving solutions for travelers and daily commuters. It is a sub-organization of Alphabet.
1001-5000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Waymo has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (231)
2024 (175)
2023 (268)
2022 (306)
2021 (298)
2020 (317)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
$11.1BKey Investors
Alphabet
2024-07-23Series C· $5.6B
2021-06-16Series B· $2.5B
2020-05-12Series A· $750M
Leadership Team
Tekedra Mawakana
Co-Chief Executive Officer
Annabel Chang
Head of State Policy & Government Relations
Recent News
2026-01-25
Business Insider
2026-01-25
2026-01-25
Company data provided by crunchbase