Research Scientist

Who you are

• PhD or Masters in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a similar technical field; with 3+ years of industry or post-doc research experience in Reinforcement Learning or Foundation Models
• Demonstration of original contributions to the field through high-impact publications (ArXiv, peer-reviewed conferences like NeurIPS/ICLR/CVPR), technical blog posts, or significant open-source contributions
• Proficiency in implementing model training flows in a scalable, distributed and performant manner such as Data parallel, FSDP and other sharding approaches
• A willingness to work with complexity of globally distributed inference infrastructure
• PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or Robotics, with a research focus on Reinforcement Learning, Foundation Models, or Multi-Modal learning
• Extensive experience designing and deploying Reinforcement Learning infrastructure, specifically for on-policy learning or alignment with human preferences
• A consistent history of original contributions to the AI community, evidenced by first-author publications at top-tier venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICRA) or maintaining significant open-source ML projects
• Experience with large scale (many-machine) training infrastructure and techniques for inference with large models such as model sharding/tensor-parallel

What the job involves

• In this hybrid role, you will report to a Principal Scientist
• Participate in Waymo’s Foundation World Model post-training and evaluation
• Research and develop cutting edge RL and Distillation techniques for Autonomous Vehicle Trajectory Planning
• Integrate emerging research from the broader AI community into Waymo’s internal RL infrastructure, conducting rigorous ablations to identify and scale the most promising methods
• Partner with engineering and research teams across Waymo to share recipes, techniques, and post-training best practices to accelerate our collective know-how

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
• Second medical opinion for you and your loved ones
• Medical advocacy program for transgender employees
• Counseling services
• Support programs including menopause benefit
• 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
• Caregiver leave
• Elder care and support
• Backup childcare
• Survivor income benefit
• 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
• Employee resource groups
• Volunteer hours
• 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