New

Principal Software Engineer, Simulation Efficiency Lead

Waymo
$332,000-$421,000 USD
United States, California, San Francisco
Oct 29, 2025
Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the world's most trusted driver. Since its start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has focused on building the Waymo Driver-The World's Most Experienced Driver-to improve access to mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes. The Waymo Driver powers Waymo's fully autonomous ride-hail service and can also be applied to a range of vehicle platforms and product use cases. The Waymo Driver has provided over ten million rider-only trips, enabled by its experience autonomously driving over 100 million miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 15+ U.S. states. Waymo's simulation infrastructure is a backbone of Waymo Driver development. It powers all the simulation, evaluation and foundation model training use cases across Waymo. As an overall performance and efficiency lead you will be responsible for setting the long term technical direction, aligning short-term efforts with long-term direction and be the trusted decider for technical decisions, with partner teams. You will report to our Director of Infrastructure and Reliability Engineering. You will: Develop a strategic vision for improving efficiency and performance of Waymo simulation infrastructure. Work with and influence partners and stakeholders across Waymo to build joint roadmaps Establish top-level performance and efficiency KPIs, metrics to monitor key business outcomes, track progress, and identify areas for improvement Provide leadership in situations that require complex and immediate triaging, technical problems, and other emergency work and helping leadership of associated teams understand the larger technical issues Act as a senior reviewer or go-to person for large scale changes, and develop appropriate decision-making and technical review processes You have: 15 years of professional experience as a hands-on software engineer Experience with large-scale distributed systems Leadership skills required to influence technical leaders across the company We prefer: Experience of driving collaboration effectively across organizational boundaries, building multi-dimensional stakeholder relationships, and importing and exporting ideas to achieve broad organizational goals. Innovative problem solver who turns ambiguity into clear solutions, comfortable with new technology and out-of-the-box thinking. Cultivation of ideas across organizational boundaries that create strategic opportunities. #LI-Hybrid 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 $332,000 — $421,000 USD