Machine Learning Engineer Perception LLM/VLM (PhD, New Grad)
Waymo · Mountain View, CA USA; San Francisco, CA USA;
Posted about 3 months ago
or apply directly on Waymo's site. We never take the application ourselves.
Is this posting real?
- This role has been open
- 80 days Waymo's roles stay open a median of 81 days
- Reposted
- No
- Salary listed
- No 0% of Waymo's roles list one
- Ghost-job risk at Waymo
- high 348 stale, 9 reposted of 353 open
- Hiring momentum
- 490 roles opened in the last 90 days ↑ up vs. the prior 90 days
- Last confirmed on the employer's board
- 2026-10-23
Measured from postings appearing on and disappearing from Waymo's own greenhouse board since 2026-08-03. Full hiring picture for Waymo.
About this role
As a Machine Learning Engineer on the Perception team at Waymo, you will design and optimize large-scale continual pre-training pipelines for vision-language models (VLMs). Your role involves conducting research on novel pre-training techniques, integrating diverse data streams, and developing metrics for evaluating model performance in the context of autonomous driving. You will also stay updated on advancements in large language models and translate research into production-ready systems.
- benefits
- 2/5
- freshness
- 1/5
- career value
- 4/5
- role clarity
- 4/5
- pay transparency
- 0/5
Scored from the posting itself — how clearly the role is described, how much it says about pay and benefits, and how recently it was listed. Not a judgement of Waymo as an employer.
What you need
- 5+ years of experience in Machine Learning, with a focus on large-scale model development (LLM, VLM, or similar foundation models)
- Proven expertise in LLM/VLM pre-training, continual learning with large scale datasets
- Strong coding proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks (e.g., Jax, TensorFlow, PyTorch)
- Hands-on experience with model training, evaluation, and deployment in a production environment
- Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
Nice to have
- Experience in fine-tuning foundation models for autonomous driving or robotics applications
- Familiarity with large-scale data curation and quality assurance processes for multimodal datasets
- Background in autonomous vehicle perception, motion planning, or decision-making systems
- Publications in top-tier machine learning or computer vision conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV)
- PhD in a relevant field
What you get
- Discretionary annual bonus program
- Equity incentive plan
- Generous Company benefits program
Worth weighing
- No specific mention of remote work options
- Salary range provided, but actual pay based on various factors
- Focus on research and development may imply a fast-paced environment with high expectations
Summarised from Waymo's posting. Read the full original.
Listed by Waymo on their greenhouse job board, last confirmed open on 2026-10-23. PitchMeAI is not the employer.
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