Staff Data Scientist

Mountain View, California, USA; San Francisco, California, USAPosted 27 days ago

Role Overview

Waymo is hiring a Staff Data Scientist. This is a full-time hybrid role, based in Mountain View, California, USA; San Francisco, California. Part of Waymo's Data Science hiring, posted 3 weeks ago. Full responsibilities, required qualifications, and the apply link are listed in the description below.

Salary Context

Salary is not disclosed in this posting. Market median for Staff-level Data Science roles is $203k-$260k (based on 28 comparable listings). Many employers share specifics during the interview process or after an initial screen.

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Job description

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.

Rigorous behavioral evaluation of the Waymo Driver is a critical part of scaling our ride hailing service and achieving Waymo’s ambitious goals. In this role, you will lead key initiatives for measuring the quality and trustworthiness of the behavior evaluation portfolio at Waymo, continuously identify and drive opportunities for improving the evaluation and testing methodologies, and partner closely with product and engineering teams to develop scalable solutions for monitoring and enhancing the health of the evaluation ecosystem. You will play a key role to ensure the behavior evaluation at Waymo is efficient, scientifically rigorous, and supporting Waymo’s growth priorities.

In this hybrid role you will report to a Data Science Lead.

You will:

Lead a roadmap to develop methodologies and Key Performance Indicators to measure the quality, cost efficiency, and business relevance for various behavior evaluation solutions at Waymo.
Directly influence the portfolio of evaluation signals relied on by hundreds of software engineers to ensure their changes in the Waymo Driver are having positive intended impacts.
Conduct deep dive analysis to understand performance bottlenecks in current evaluation methodologies, propose and prototype improvements in metrics, sampling strategy, statistical inference, etc.
Become an expert in Waymo’s evaluation ecosystem for onboard software. Understand how a broad variety of evaluation signals affect Waymo’s launch decisions, develop strategies for evaluating trade-offs, and provide actionable insights for designing launch criteria.
Collaborate with product and engineering teams to build solutions for assessing Waymo’s evaluation portfolio at scale and accelerate the development for new evaluation.
Collaborate with owners of various evaluation solutions, develop feedback loops to surface insights on evaluation quality to stakeholders and drive actionable plans for continuous improvement.

You have:

Degree in a quantitative field (e.g. Statistics, Mathematics, Physics)
Either a PhD in a quantitative field and 5+ years of industry experience, or 7+ years of industry experience solving data science problems
Solid statistical background. Expertise using advanced statistical methods in an applied setting (e.g., experimentation design, causal inference, etc); familiarity with ML systems/models
Demonstrated knowledge of data analysis libraries and packages in Python, R, and/or SQL
Strong communication/leadership to address a high surface area across different organizations and products
Ability to navigate through ambiguous business requirements and propose a clear technical solution

We prefer:

PhD in a quantitative field
Experience developing production-grade software and tools
Experience as the technical lead for a broad data science area. A demonstrated track record of independently driving data science projects to deliver business value
Experience with large-scale evaluation frameworks or experimentation/data platform for software development and machine learning systems
Experience solving problems related to Autonomous Driving or Ride Hailing

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

$238,000—$302,000 USD

About Waymo

Waymo

waymo.com

Data ScienceHybrid

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do I apply for the Staff Data Scientist position at Waymo?

Use the Apply button above to submit your application directly to Waymo. Most applications take less than 5 minutes if your resume and contact details are ready, and you'll be routed to the employer's official application system to finish.

Is the Staff Data Scientist role at Waymo remote or in-office?

This is a hybrid role based in Mountain View, California, USA; San Francisco, California. Expect a mix of in-office and remote days, with the specific cadence set by the hiring manager.

What does a Staff Data Scientist at Waymo earn?

Waymo has not disclosed a salary range in this posting. Many employers share specifics later in the interview process; you can also ask during a recruiter screen if compensation transparency is important to you.

When was the Staff Data Scientist role at Waymo posted?

This role was posted on June 17, 2026 (27 days ago). It's still listed as actively hiring; we re-confirm openings against the source system multiple times per day and remove closed roles.

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