← All roles

Staff Machine Learning Engineer, TLM , Labeling Automation

Waymo· Software Engineering
Apply on company site
Mountain View, California$251k - $310kFull-timePosted 4d ago

About the role

Staff ML Engineer and Technical Lead Manager on the Labeling Team at Waymo, leading technical strategy for auto-labeling pipelines, managing a team of ML engineers, and developing state-of-the-art computer vision and vision-language models to scale data labeling for the Waymo Driver.

Responsibilities

  • Lead Technical Strategy & Architect Auto-Labeling: Define the technical vision and lead deployment of scalable auto-labeling pipelines to improve data throughput and reduce manual annotation bottlenecks.
  • Build Robust Auto-Graders: Develop automated anomaly detection and quality evaluation systems (auto-graders) to assess annotation accuracy, detect regressions, and enforce quality standards across millions of labels.
  • Train & Deploy SOTA Computer Vision Models: Train, optimize, and productionize advanced 2D/3D computer vision models, including SAM, YOLO, and bespoke 3D perception/tracking models.
  • Leverage Vision-Language Models (VLMs): Fine-tune and deploy large VLMs and LLMs with prompt optimization and post-training techniques (SFT, RL) for open-set labeling and contextual reasoning.
  • Drive Organizational Technical Direction: Establish long-term ML roadmaps and guide architectural decisions to elevate engineering standards.
  • Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Align labeling capabilities with ML data needs of the Waymo Driver with Perception, Planner, and Simulation teams.
  • People Leadership & Management: Directly manage, mentor, and grow a team of ML engineers, oversee career growth, performance, hiring, and foster an inclusive culture.

Qualifications

  • B.S. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
  • 7+ years of professional software engineering and applied ML experience.
  • Must have deep background in computer vision (object detection, segmentation, spatial tracking).
  • Must have extensive hands-on experience in large model training, distributed computing, and scaling DL architectures (PyTorch or TensorFlow).
  • Strong Python and/or C++ coding proficiency for production-grade software.
  • Experience taking ML solutions from research to scalable production deployment.
  • 2+ years of direct people management or technical leadership experience (TL/TLM).

Skills

Required:Technical leadershipComputer VisionLarge model trainingPython
Nice to have:C++

Benefits

  • Waymo employees are eligible for discretionary annual bonus, equity incentive plan, and generous benefits program (subject to eligibility).
  • Health and wellness benefits (medical, dental, vision, mental wellness support).
  • Financial wellness (compensation, bonus opportunities, equity, provident fund, discounts).
  • Flexibility and time off (remote/hybrid options, PTO, bereavement, sick, parental leave).
  • Support for families (26 weeks birthing parents, 18 weeks non-birthing parents).
  • Education reimbursement and personal/professional development.
  • ERGs and volunteer time off.
  • Access to Google offices, cafes, wellness centers, and other perks.
Last updated Oct 22, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
Waymo logo

About Waymo

The World’s Most Experienced Driver

Waymo—formerly the Google self-driving car project—makes it safe and easy for people & things to get around with autonomous vehicles.

Autonomous DrivingAutonomous VehiclesMobilityRide-Hailliquid-ai-recruiting-target
Company profileWebsite

More open roles at Waymo