Principal Software Engineer (Onboard Field Response)

• The Onboard Software team develops the critical software and machine learning models that power the Waymo Driver
• Our systems enable the vehicle to perceive its surroundings, make safe driving decisions, and transport people to their destinations
• With Waymo’s fleet driving millions of miles every week, we operate at a scale that exposes our technology to a vast array of challenging real-world scenarios
• As the Onboard Field Response Lead, you will play a key role in our continuous improvement cycle
• Your primary responsibility will be to lead the engineering analysis and response to novel, rare, or unexpected events encountered by the fleet in the field
• This includes both spearheading timely investigations and resolutions, as well as proactively evolving the Onboard Software system to enhance its robustness and adaptability
• This unique role blends software engineering leadership with principles akin to Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), but instead of a traditional large-scale web service, our “site” is a rapidly growing and evolving fleet of autonomous vehicles operating in multiple cities
• The challenges of ensuring reliability for a distributed, mobile, real-world system like ours are unprecedented. If you are a software engineering leader with SRE-like qualities who is passionate about solving first-of-their-kind problems with significant real-world impact and be hands on, we’d like to meet you
• Reports to the Head of Planner within the Onboard organization
• Organize and participate in oncall rotations for how to respond to driving issues in the field
• Harden software, develop playbooks, improve oncall metrics and post-mitigation workstreams, and improve robustness of the software system running inside the autonomous vehicle
• Lead the engineering analysis and response to novel, rare or unexpected events encountered by the fleet in the field
• Partner with organization leads and others across the Onboard organization to improve large-scale software engineering best practices
• Contribute to Onboard software architecture to help improve its robustness and debuggability
• If needed: request, hire, and manage additional engineers to contribute to the above responsibilities

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and dependents
• Employee assistance programs focused on mental health
• Personalized workplace adjustments for diverse needs and abilities, including physical, mental, and neurodivergent considerations
• Access to mental health apps
• Onsite wellness centers
• Counseling services
• Second medical opinion for you and your loved ones
• Support programs including menopause benefit
• Medical advocacy program for transgender employees
• Competitive compensation
• Regular bonus and equity performance grant opportunities
• Generous 401(k) and regional retirement plans
• Annual cross-company compensation review and pay equity analysis
• 1-on-1 financial coaching
• Fertility and growing family assistance
• Parental leave and baby bonding leave
• Backup childcare
• Survivor income benefit
• Elder care and support
• Caregiver leave
• Paid time off, including vacation, bereavement, sick leave, parental leave, disability, and holidays
• Jury duty leave
• Military leave
• Hybrid work model with remote work opportunities also available
• Educational reimbursement
• Peer learning and coaching platform
• Donation matching programs
• Volunteer hours
• Employee resource groups
• Internal community groups and local culture clubs
• Inspiring spaces to work, recharge, and collaborate with fellow Waymonauts
• On-site meals and snacks
• Fitness centers, massage programs, and ergonomic support
• On-demand fitness, wellbeing, and cooking classes
• Commuter benefits

• 5+ years of experience as an organizational leader, managing a group of people and partnering with other organizational leaders
• Excellent influence without authority skills
• 10+ years of experience leading large-scale production software systems, especially machine learned systems
• Organizational awareness, extremely collaborative, strong communication, focus on value add to the company and to the team
• Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field
• Experience organizing and running oncall rotations
• Experience leading hybrid hardware/software production systems
• Experience leading teams who work on modern deep ML / large scale models
• Track record of bringing about change in 1000+ person engineering organizations