Senior/Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist - Generative Modeling for Planning

Waymo is at the forefront of autonomous driving technology, striving to become the world's most trusted driver. Originating from the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo is dedicated to advancing the Waymo Driver—The World's Most Experienced Driver™—to enhance mobility and save lives that are often lost to traffic accidents. The Waymo Driver not only powers our fully autonomous ride-hail service but is also adaptable across various vehicle platforms and use cases. With over ten million rider-only trips completed, our technology has driven autonomously for more than 100 million miles on public roads, supported by tens of billions of miles in simulation across 15+ U.S. states.Our Compute Team plays a pivotal role in delivering the compute platform that runs the software stack of fully autonomous vehicles. We specialize in designing high-performance custom silicon, developing cutting-edge system-level compute architectures that maximize performance, power efficiency, and minimize latency. Our multidisciplinary team thrives on collaboration, working closely with various engineering teams to ensure both hardware and software are optimized for peak performance. We are looking for passionate and talented individuals to join us in developing one of the highest-performing automotive compute platforms in the world.In this hybrid role, you will report to a Hardware Engineering Manager.

Waymo is at the forefront of autonomous driving technology, dedicated to becoming the world's most trusted driver. Established in 2009 as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, Waymo has developed the Waymo Driver—The World’s Most Experienced Driver™—aimed at enhancing mobility access and saving countless lives from traffic-related accidents. Our technology empowers a fully autonomous ride-hail service and is adaptable across various vehicle platforms and product applications. With over ten million rider-only trips facilitated by the Waymo Driver and more than 100 million miles driven autonomously on public roads, we are paving the way for safer transportation.The Perception team is responsible for developing systems that interpret the spatial-temporal representations and semantic meanings of the environment surrounding our autonomous vehicles. Our collaborative efforts with downstream teams focus on optimizing and integrating these systems within the Waymo Driver. We engage in innovative research to tackle real-world challenges and work closely with research teams at Alphabet. Our engineers have access to extensive driving data from diverse sensors, allowing us to (1) create efficient learning methods from vast real-world datasets, (2) build and train models at scale, (3) analyze real-world behaviors, and (4) optimize models for both onboard and offboard hardware.In this hybrid role, you will report to a Technical Lead Manager.

Waymo, an innovator in autonomous driving technology, is dedicated to becoming the world's most reliable driver. Originating as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, our focus has been on creating the Waymo Driver—The World’s Most Experienced Driver™—to enhance mobility access and prevent traffic-related fatalities. The Waymo Driver supports our fully autonomous ride-hail service and can be integrated into various vehicle platforms for diverse applications. With over ten million rides provided and experience from driving more than 100 million miles on public roads combined with billions of miles in simulation across 15+ U.S. states, we’re at the forefront of a transportation revolution.The Perception team is responsible for developing systems that learn spatial-temporal representations and their semantic meanings within the autonomous vehicle's environment. Collaborating closely with other teams for optimization and integration into the Waymo Driver, we engage in research to tackle practical challenges and work with Alphabet's research teams. With access to millions of miles of diverse driving data, our engineers can (1) create methods for efficient and continuous learning from large-scale real-world data, (2) build and train models at scale, (3) analyze real-world behavior to manage complex interactions, and (4) optimize models for our onboard and offboard hardware.In this hybrid role, you will report directly to a Technical Lead Manager.

Waymo is pioneering the future of autonomous driving technology with a vision to become the world's most trusted driver. Originating from the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has dedicated itself to creating the Waymo Driver—The World’s Most Experienced Driver™—which aims to enhance mobility access and save countless lives lost in traffic accidents. Powering Waymo’s fully autonomous ride-hailing platform, the Waymo Driver is adaptable across various vehicle types and applications. With over ten million rider-only trips achieved and a remarkable track record of driving more than 100 million miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 15+ U.S. states, Waymo is at the forefront of transforming transportation.The Driver Understanding and Evaluation team at Waymo is crucial in developing an in-depth understanding of the Waymo Driver's behavior. With an impressive capacity of over one million driverless miles each week, it is essential for Waymo to comprehend and evaluate all vehicle behaviors—both in real-world scenarios and simulations—through automated algorithms. The learned metrics team is a strategic initiative employing machine learning to scale and meet Waymo's ambitious goals. We work collaboratively across various teams to transition machine learning into production systems and establish Waymo’s reward function. Our focus is on building and maintaining large-scale machine learning and data systems, simulation workflows, and analytical tools. By merging expert human insights with cutting-edge machine learning models, we provide training and evaluation data for the Waymo driver. We seek enthusiastic researchers and software engineers who are passionate about creating robust production-grade machine learning systems for our autonomous vehicles and possess an unwavering commitment to enhancing our technology stack's performance.

Waymo is a pioneering force in autonomous driving technology, dedicated to becoming the world's most trusted driver. Originating from the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo's mission focuses on creating the Waymo Driver—The World’s Most Experienced Driver™—with the goal of enhancing mobility access and significantly reducing traffic-related fatalities. The Waymo Driver is the backbone of our fully autonomous ride-hailing service and is adaptable across various vehicle platforms and applications. With over ten million rider-only trips completed and the experience of driving autonomously for over 100 million miles on public roads, alongside tens of billions of miles in simulation across more than 15 U.S. states, we are committed to transforming the future of transportation.The Simulator Team at Waymo is at the forefront of innovation, developing advanced simulations that replicate realistic environments for the testing, training, and validation of the Waymo Driver. Our team comprises a diverse, collaborative group of machine learning (ML) engineers, software engineers, and ML research engineers, who are dedicated to crafting industry-leading simulation solutions. Utilizing cutting-edge generative and reconstructive ML algorithms, we model the real world, including realistic agents, road systems, traffic dynamics, weather conditions, and a comprehensive sensor suite (Camera, Lidar, Radar).In this exciting role, you will be instrumental in enhancing the fidelity, scalability, controllability, and richness of our simulations by exploring the latest advancements in 3D world modeling. By leveraging state-of-the-art ML technologies trained on extensive datasets, you will help us create dynamic, semantically rich virtual worlds that have a direct impact on the development and validation of the Waymo Driver.You will report directly to a Senior Staff Engineering Manager.Responsibilities:Lead the design, development, and deployment of innovative 4D world models and generative systems aimed at generating ultra-realistic and controllable sensor outputs and semantics for simulation applications at Waymo.Architect and implement scalable, robust ML pipelines for the training, evaluation, and deployment of large-scale generative models within our simulation framework, employing techniques like model distillation and quantization.Develop and scale production-ready video generation methodologies (e.g., Diffusion, Flow Matching) to create dynamic and interactive simulation environments.Utilize Vision Language Models (VLMs) to enhance semantic comprehension and control within our world simulation products.Collaborate with leading research teams across Waymo and Alphabet to integrate state-of-the-art research in 4D world modeling and generative AI into scalable, production-ready solutions.Provide mentorship and technical guidance to fellow engineers on the team.

Waymo seeks a Senior Machine Learning Engineer with a focus on Large Language Model (LLM) and Vision-Language Model (VLM) distillation. This role is based in Mountain View, California, and centers on advancing the machine learning models that drive Waymo’s autonomous vehicles. Collaboration with both data science and engineering teams is a key part of the work, with an emphasis on refining and optimizing model performance. Key responsibilities Design and implement algorithms to distill LLMs and VLMs for greater efficiency. Work with large datasets to support learning and adaptation in self-driving systems. Partner with cross-functional teams to bring optimized models into production environments. Continually improve the performance and efficiency of models that power autonomous driving technology. Requirements Hands-on experience with machine learning, with a strong background in LLM and VLM distillation. Proven problem-solving skills and the ability to apply machine learning creatively to practical challenges. Interest in tackling real-world problems related to autonomous vehicles.

Who We Are Nuro is at the forefront of self-driving technology, dedicated to making autonomous driving accessible to everyone. Established in 2016, we are engineering the world’s most scalable driving solution by merging advanced AI with automotive-grade hardware. Our proprietary technology, the Nuro Driver™, is licensed to support a variety of applications, from robotaxis and commercial fleets to personal vehicles. With years of successful self-driving deployments, Nuro provides automakers and mobility platforms a clear pathway to achieving commercial-scale autonomous vehicles, fostering a safer, more connected future. About the Work Design and enhance state-of-the-art generative models, particularly focusing on diffusion architectures, flow-matching techniques, and energy-based models for autonomous planning. Develop generative models utilizing foundation models. Harness large language models and world foundation models for reasoning, decision-making, and multi-modal generation. Optimize generative models through reinforcement learning to enhance interactive reasoning. Investigate reward modeling and learned verifiers using generative models. Explore joint prediction and planning as well as self-play, and leverage generative models for active learning and world modeling. Create controllable generative models to direct the generation process towards specific goals, conditions, and rewards. Collaborate with autonomy teams to propose and implement holistic solutions to pressing autonomy challenges. Assess issues, suggest solutions, prioritize tasks, and evaluate your findings by deploying models on the Nuro Driver.

Waymo is a leader in autonomous driving technology, dedicated to becoming the world’s most trusted driver. Originating as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo is committed to enhancing mobility access while significantly reducing traffic-related fatalities. The Waymo Driver, recognized as The World’s Most Experienced Driver™, underpins our fully autonomous ride-hailing service and can be adapted for various vehicle configurations and applications. With over ten million rider-only trips and more than 100 million miles driven autonomously on public roads, we are at the forefront of transforming transportation across 15+ U.S. states.Our Compute Team plays a pivotal role in this mission, delivering the advanced compute platform that enables our fully autonomous vehicles to operate seamlessly. We focus on architecting and developing high-performance custom silicon and system-level compute architectures that optimize performance, power efficiency, and latency. By collaborating with various teams, we ensure our hardware and software are designed and fine-tuned for peak performance. We are a multidisciplinary group seeking innovative and talented individuals to contribute to one of the industry’s highest-performing automotive compute platforms.

Join Our TeamAre you passionate about pioneering projects that harness advanced AI technology to unlock significant benefits from meetings and conversations? Become a vital member of our core AI team at Otter.ai, where you will collaborate with seasoned scientists and engineers dedicated to machine learning. As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, your expertise in software engineering will be crucial in scaling and refining our machine learning systems. You will play a key role in transforming innovative research into production-ready features that enhance Otter’s summarization and conversational intelligence products.Your ContributionsDesign, construct, and advance extensive SID / ASR / NLP / LLM systems that drive essential product experiences, including summarization, chat, and speech comprehension for millions of interactions.Lead the creation and execution of training, fine-tuning, post-training, and inference methodologies for large language and speech models utilizing PyTorch and/or JAX while balancing quality, latency, cost, and dependability.Innovate and enhance model architectures, loss functions, decoding techniques, and training methodologies for speech and language models, guided by research insights and production restrictions.Oversee the entire ML system lifecycle, from initial research prototyping to production deployment, continuous monitoring, iteration, and long-term maintenance.Collaborate closely with product and infrastructure teams to translate groundbreaking research into scalable, production-grade systems that yield measurable user and business outcomes.Champion system-level enhancements in model performance, robustness, observability, and operational excellence using real-world conversational data.Establish technical direction and best practices for ML infrastructure, data pipelines, evaluation frameworks, and deployment workflows within a cloud environment.Diagnose and resolve complex issues related to model behavior, data quality, scalability, and system interactions, often preemptively before they affect users.Mentor and uplift fellow engineers, contributing to team standards, evaluating designs, and fostering a culture of sound technical decision-making and execution.

What You'll Be DoingJoin Moveworks as a Senior Machine Learning Engineer focused on developing advanced ML infrastructure for deploying and managing Large Language Models (LLMs). This pivotal role involves the design, optimization, and scaling of comprehensive machine learning systems that drive our AI solutions. The ML Infrastructure team is responsible for a range of critical functions, including distributed training and inference pipelines, model evaluation, and latency optimization for LLMs. Our work supports numerous ML and NLP models currently in production, impacting millions of enterprise users. You will tackle real-world challenges related to service scalability and algorithm optimization.Your collaboration with our machine learning team, data infrastructure team, and various cross-functional experts will directly enhance our customers' AI experience. This is an opportunity to play a vital role in the long-term scalability of our core AI product and the success of the company. If you seek a high-impact, fast-paced environment to elevate your career, we want to hear from you!Design, develop, and enhance scalable machine learning infrastructure for training, evaluating, and deploying LLMs.Create abstractions to automate diverse steps in various ML workflows.Collaborate with interdisciplinary teams of engineers, data analysts, machine learning specialists, and product managers to introduce innovative features.Utilize your expertise to promote best practices in machine learning and data engineering.

Waymo is looking for a Senior Machine Learning Engineer focused on Runtime and Serving to help advance autonomous vehicle technology in Mountain View, CA. Role overview This position centers on developing and improving machine learning systems that support safe and efficient vehicle operation. The work involves optimizing algorithms and increasing the performance of deployed models in real-world conditions. What you will do Lead the design and implementation of machine learning systems used in autonomous vehicles Work on runtime and serving infrastructure to ensure reliable and efficient model deployment Contribute expertise to optimize algorithms for safety and operational performance Impact Your contributions will directly affect how Waymo's vehicles interpret and respond to their environment, supporting safer and more reliable autonomous driving.

About UsNuro is at the forefront of self-driving technology, dedicated to making autonomy available to everyone. Established in 2016, we are developing the world's most scalable driver by merging innovative AI with robust automotive hardware. Our flagship technology, the Nuro Driver™, is licensed to facilitate a variety of applications, from robotaxis to commercial fleets and personal vehicles. With years of successful self-driving deployments, Nuro is paving the way for automakers and mobility platforms to achieve commercial-scale autonomy, enabling a safer, more interconnected future.Role OverviewOur Sensor Data and Calibration team is expanding, and we are seeking a Senior Software Engineer with a strong background in robotics and machine learning. You will be responsible for designing both online and offline unstructured (targetless) sensor calibration algorithms. The ideal candidate will have extensive hands-on experience in the research, development, and application of machine learning methods utilizing various sensor data types (IMU, camera, lidar, radar, etc.). Familiarity with classical state estimation techniques, such as non-linear least-squares optimization and Lie algebra, is a plus.Key ResponsibilitiesDevelop cutting-edge state estimation and calibration algorithms leveraging both traditional robotics and modern machine learning techniques.Evaluate and characterize the accuracy and performance metrics of state estimation and calibration algorithms.Integrate calibration pipelines into the autonomy system while monitoring onboard performance and resource usage.Collaborate with cross-functional teams to enhance ML model training and overall performance assessment.Address critical inquiries regarding sensor data and overall autonomy effectiveness.

Join Our TeamAt Unity, we are creating an exceptional ad-tech ecosystem that connects billions of users with the games and experiences they cherish. The Advertiser Growth team plays a pivotal role in this mission, managing the online ads delivery stack, which includes auction, pacing, and bidding systems. As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, you will significantly contribute to modernizing our core infrastructure and developing backend systems for next-generation AI agents that transform the campaign experience. This position provides an exciting opportunity to tackle complex system challenges at a massive scale while directly impacting Unity’s revenue growth.

Join Waymo as a Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer specializing in Depot Automation, where you will play a vital role in transforming the future of transportation through cutting-edge machine learning solutions.Your expertise will drive innovation and efficiency, ensuring our autonomous vehicles operate seamlessly in various environments. Collaborate with a team of passionate engineers and researchers to develop and implement advanced algorithms that enhance our depot operations.

The OpportunityAre you passionate about leading innovative projects that harness AI technology to enhance the value of meetings and conversations? Join our dynamic AI team at Otter.ai, where you will collaborate with seasoned scientists and engineers to advance our machine learning capabilities. As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, you will leverage your robust software engineering expertise to scale and optimize our ML systems, transforming pioneering research into production-ready features that drive our summarization and conversational intelligence offerings.Your ImpactDesign, build, and advance expansive Speech Recognition, Natural Language Processing, and Large Language Model systems that underpin essential product experiences, including chat and speech understanding across millions of interactions.Lead the architecture and development of training, fine-tuning, post-training, and inference methodologies for large-scale language and speech models utilizing PyTorch and/or JAX, making informed trade-offs among quality, latency, cost, and reliability.Enhance model architectures, loss functions, decoding methods, and training strategies for speech and language models, guided by both research insights and practical constraints.Oversee the complete ML system lifecycle, from research prototyping to production deployment, including monitoring, iteration, and ongoing maintenance.Collaborate closely with product and infrastructure teams to translate groundbreaking research into scalable, production-grade systems that yield significant user and business impact.Drive enhancements in model performance, reliability, observability, and operational excellence using real-world conversational data at scale.Establish technical direction and best practices for ML infrastructure, data pipelines, evaluation frameworks, and deployment processes in a cloud environment.Identify and resolve complex challenges in model behavior, data quality, scaling, and system interactions, often preemptively addressing issues before they affect users.Mentor and uplift fellow engineers, shaping team standards, reviewing designs, and fostering a culture of high-quality technical decision-making and execution.Influence applied research and technical strategies by pinpointing promising speech and multimodal modeling techniques, and driving their validation and adoption.

About Us Nuro is a pioneering self-driving technology company committed to making autonomy accessible for everyone. Established in 2016, we are developing the world’s most scalable autonomous vehicle, integrating advanced AI with automotive-grade hardware. Our flagship technology, the Nuro Driver™, is licensed to enable a variety of applications, including robotaxis, commercial fleets, and personal vehicles. With a proven track record in self-driving deployments, Nuro provides automakers and mobility platforms a clear pathway to large-scale autonomous vehicles, paving the way for a safer, more connected future. Position OverviewOur robotics division is expanding, and we are on the lookout for an experienced Software Engineer to join our Sensor Data and Calibration team. We seek a candidate with a strong background in robotics and machine learning to create synthetic sensor simulation models and algorithms. The ideal applicant will possess hands-on experience with research, development, and implementation of machine learning techniques (such as NeRF or Gaussian splatting) aimed at generating synthetic sensor data, including photorealistic images and realistic lidar and/or radar outputs. Your Responsibilities Research, develop, and implement cutting-edge synthetic sensor simulation methodologies. Evaluate and characterize the authenticity and utility of synthetic sensor data. Address critical inquiries regarding sensor data and the performance of autonomous systems. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to establish mapping needs and specifications. Candidate Profile One of the following qualifications: PhD in machine learning, computer science, electrical engineering, robotics, or a related discipline with at least 3 years of industry experience. Master's degree with a minimum of 4 years of industry experience. 5+ years of relevant industry experience. In-depth understanding of machine learning principles, with practical experience in training and evaluating modern ML models. Proficient in Python, with familiarity in deep learning frameworks like PyTorch, TensorFlow, or Jax. Desired Skills Comprehensive knowledge of 3D geometry and state estimation concepts. Strong programming skills in systems coding. Experience in simulating/modeling real sensors (camera, lidar, radar, IMU, etc.), including noise modeling. Familiarity with contemporary ML graphics techniques, such as NeRF, Gaussian Splatting, and/or generative models.

About the RoleJoin our dynamic team of experts where machine learning and systems engineering intersect to enhance the performance of autonomous systems. As a Senior Software Engineer specializing in Perception Machine Learning Data, you will play a crucial role in integrating machine learning advancements with autonomy infrastructure, ensuring that our models are trained using the most pertinent, diverse, and high-quality datasets. Your contributions will significantly influence how autonomous systems recognize uncommon scenarios, adapt to various geographical contexts, and operate safely at scale.Key Responsibilities Include:Utilizing Vision Language Models (VLMs) to compile diverse datasets that reflect real-world driving patterns across different regions.Creating high-fidelity synthetic data frameworks across multiple sensor modalities.Enhancing machine learning-powered validation processes for data quality and model preparedness.Your Impact:High-Output Generalist: Collaborate across various domains including autonomy, infrastructure, databases, simulation, and machine learning development, while expanding your expertise in Robotics and ML.Robotics Specialist: Develop cutting-edge solutions for data discovery, automated labeling, and synthetic data generation in close cooperation with the Infrastructure and Autonomy teams.About the WorkTackle the most demanding data challenges in autonomy by applying machine learning and rigorous systems engineering principles:Design hybrid systems that combine deep learning with traditional algorithms for scalable data curation and annotation.Create frameworks to evaluate the real-world authenticity of synthetic data and enhance the quality of synthetic data rendering.Develop tools to automatically identify data gaps that affect the performance of perception models.Collaborate with autonomy engineers to transform raw sensor data into prioritized training objectives, addressing critical gaps that hinder perception and autonomy performance.About YouBachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Statistics, Physics, Mathematics, or a related quantitative field.Experience:4+ years of professional software engineering experience, proficient in Python and familiar with C/C++. Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional technical projects from conception to execution.You have hands-on experience in implementing machine learning solutions and enjoy embedding them into practical systems. Your focus is on delivering impactful, integrated solutions rather than solely theoretical ML projects.Bonus PointsExperience working with synthetic or autonomous driving data.Background in building machine learning systems for robotic applications.

Waymo, a leader in autonomous driving technology, is dedicated to becoming the world's most trusted driver. Originating from the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, our focus has been on creating the Waymo Driver—The World’s Most Experienced Driver™—to enhance mobility access and prevent traffic-related fatalities. With our Waymo Driver, we have powered a fully autonomous ride-hail service, achieving over ten million rider-only trips and accumulating experience from over 100 million miles driven on public roads and tens of billions of miles in simulation across more than 15 U.S. states.The Waymo AI Foundations team is on a mission to create machine learning solutions that address critical challenges in autonomous driving, aiming to operate Waymo vehicles safely across numerous cities and under various driving conditions. We actively engage in collaborative efforts with other research teams within Alphabet, focusing on areas such as reinforcement learning, learning from demonstrations, generative modeling, Bayesian inference, hierarchical learning, and robust evaluation.This role follows a hybrid work schedule and you will report to a Senior Staff Software Engineer.

Be Part of the Future of Home RoboticsAt Sunday Robotics, we are pioneering the development of personal robots that alleviate the burden of repetitive household tasks. Our mission is to democratize access to advanced robotics, allowing families to reclaim precious time.After an intensive 18 months of assembling a talented team, securing funding, and validating our innovative technology, we are eager to welcome passionate individuals to join us as we embark on the next exciting chapter of our journey. If you are enthusiastic about contributing your skills to the cutting edge of robotics, we want to hear from you!The RoleAs a Machine Learning Infrastructure Engineer at Sunday Robotics, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of home robotics. You will develop end-to-end machine learning models for robotic manipulation, creating foundational systems that will expedite our efforts to introduce robots into everyday homes.This versatile position can be customized to align with your specific expertise, whether it be in data pipelines, training infrastructure, or inference. Your contributions will span the entire robot learning pipeline: from ingesting and processing multimodal data to scaling distributed training, optimizing real-time inference, and developing research tools.What You Will AccomplishEnhance the research codebase for optimal ergonomics and rapid iteration.Oversee model training infrastructure, including job scheduling, checkpointing, metrics, and logging.Facilitate distributed training across GPU clusters with minimal friction for researchers.Enable the training of larger models through techniques such as sharding and memory optimization.Profile and enhance GPU utilization, memory efficiency, and training throughput.Create low-latency inference pipelines for real-time robot control, employing techniques to optimize performance.Collaborate closely with researchers and roboticists to transform research requirements into robust software and infrastructure.Data Pipelines and Research ToolsArchitect high-throughput pipelines for the ingestion, validation, and transformation of multimodal robot data such as video and proprioception.Develop efficient storage systems and metadata indexing for seamless data retrieval.