Staff Software Engineer (TLM), Field Response

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.

The Field Response Team protects Waymo's operations by detecting, mitigating, and preventing real-world autonomous driving issues before they have a significant impact. The team is involved across the entire issue-identification and resolution lifecycle. As we expand our operations to Tokyo, we are building out local expertise to navigate region-specific driving environments and support our global 24/7 deployment cycle.

You will:

• Develop systems to detect issues in the field not only specific to the Japanese driving environment but across all of Waymo’s international markets.
• Hire, mentor, and lead a small team of software engineers, fostering a culture of high ownership, technical excellence, and rapid execution.
• Build systems and tools to help monitor the fleet as Waymo continues to scale including new software roll outs, new geos and new platforms.
• Partner closely with Data Science, Onboard Software, Mapping, and other engineering teams to identify system bottlenecks and design end-to-end technical solutions.
• Lead strategic investments to improve the quality of existing diagnostic signals, ensuring they scale seamlessly across all of Waymo's geographies and Operational Design Domains (ODDs).

You have:

• BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field of study.
• 5-7+ years of hands-on software development experience building highly scalable, reliable, and performant systems.
• 1-2+ years of experience directly managing and mentoring software engineering teams.
• Strong system design capabilities and fluent coding skills in C++, Python, and SQL.
• Proven ability to tackle highly open-ended technical and system design challenges with a structured, first-principles approach.
• Growth mindset, eagerness to learn, and a genuine excitement for the future of autonomous driving.
• Professional or native-level fluency in both Japanese and English to seamlessly bridge communication across international markets.

We prefer:

• Deep familiarity with driving dynamics, local infrastructure, and road environments in Japan (specifically Tokyo), with an intuitive understanding of local traffic etiquette and pedestrian behavior.
• Prior experience in mapping, localization, geospatial engineering, or high-volume data pipelines within the autonomous vehicle, robotics, or geographic information systems (GIS) industries