Senior Staff Android Engineer, In-Car Experience

5039
On Site

Mountain View, California

Software Engineering

Full-Time

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.

We are building a team of engineers dedicated to further developing our in-car experience (ICX). Projects span the complete in-cabin software stack, including rider-facing interfaces (Pick Ups and Drop Offs, 3D perception visualization, passenger infotainment), platform application infrastructure, and embedded vehicle bring-up. Our team works on the foundational software and user experiences used by passengers to hail and interact with our autonomous vehicles, solving novel human-computer interaction, systems reliability, and real-time distributed systems problems in the AV space.

In this hybrid role, you will report to an Engineering Director.

You will:

Define and drive the overarching, multi-year technical vision and architecture across the entire in-car experience, bridging low-level vehicle/hardware bring-up, Android OS platform services, and rider-facing applications.
Serve as the principal technical lead across multiple engineering teams (ICX, App Platform Infra, and UXC Bring-up), setting architectural direction and steering the integration of high-impact features such as real-time 3D perception views, passenger controls, and third-party app ecosystems.
Lead from the front as a hands-on technical authority, actively conducting system design reviews, diagnosing complex low-level bottlenecks (e.g., AOSP/OS stability, graphics rendering performance, IPC latency), and establishing rigorous standards for code health and reliability.
Champion Waymo's DevAI initiative within in-car engineering by driving the adoption of AI-native developer tooling, agentic workflows, and automated evaluation systems to radically improve team velocity and software quality.
Partner cross-functionally with Product, UX, Systems Engineering, and Hardware teams to align technical trade-offs with product vision and translate complex requirements into clear, actionable technical roadmaps.
Act as an organizational force multiplier by mentoring senior engineers and tech leads, fostering technical excellence, and driving consensus across complex, multi-system initiatives.

You have:

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of setting strategic technical direction and delivering complex, large-scale systems as a senior technical lead (L6/L7 equivalent).
Deep technical expertise spanning Android/AOSP platform development (system services, HAL, IPC/Binder, C++ native layers), with proven experience building core OS and framework capabilities beyond standard application-layer development.
Extensive experience with modern client architecture, systems programming, and modern UI frameworks (Kotlin, Jetpack Compose), as well as complementary distributed backend systems.
Strong system design expertise with a demonstrated ability to decouple monolithic architectures, design reusable platform infrastructure, and optimize for resource-constrained onboard hardware environments.
Demonstrated leadership in developer productivity and AI-native workflows, with practical experience integrating DevAI tools, LLMs, or agentic systems to accelerate software development lifecycles.

We prefer:

Master’s or PhD degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
Experience with automotive software environments, Android Automotive OS (AAOS), or vehicle hardware integration.
Proven track record designing and maintaining extensible application frameworks and SDKs for third-party developer ecosystems.
Experience with hardware-accelerated graphics pipelines (OpenGL ES, Vulkan), display composers, or real-time 3D rendering.
Experience operating in safety-critical, high-reliability, or low-latency systems.

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

$298,000—$368,000 USD

We appreciate your interest in Waymo. Waymo is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, committed to creating a culture of belonging and maintaining a supportive workplace for all employees. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds, and employment decisions are based on a candidate’s qualifications, experience, and alignment with job requirements and business needs. Waymo does not discriminate against, and prohibits harassment of, any applicant or employee based on race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, age, disability, military status, family status, pregnancy, genetic information or any other basis protected by applicable law. Waymo will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal records in accordance with applicable law. Waymo is committed to making sure our hiring process is accessible for all candidates. If you need assistance applying for a role or participating in the interview process due to a disability, please let the recruiting team know or email waymo-candidatesupport@google.com. (This email address is intended to be used only for requesting accommodations as part of the application process. Other inquiries will not receive a response.)

Some of our Benefits

Health and wellness

Our people are at the heart of everything we do. At Waymo, you can enjoy top-notch medical, dental and vision insurance, mental wellness support, gym membership, and special wellness programs.

Financial wellness

Your financial peace of mind is important to us. At Waymo, we offer competitive compensation, bonus opportunities, equity, employees provident fund, and lots of other perks and employee discounts.

Flexibility and time off

Take the time you need to relax and recharge. Enjoy the flexibility to work from another location for four weeks per year. We support an on-site or hybrid work model and offer remote working opportunities, paid time off, bereavement, sick, and parental leave.

Supporting families

When it comes to growing your family or caring for your loved ones, you have our full support. Enhanced leave options include 26 weeks of paid leave for birthing parents and 18 weeks of paid leave for non-birthing parents.

Community and personal development

At Waymo, you'll find a range of opportunities to grow, connect, and give back. We offer education reimbursement, personal and professional development, mentorship, and other ways to connect through Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), other internal groups, and even time off to volunteer.

Cool perks

Access to Google offices, cafes, wellness centers, massages, and so much more. To support your wellbeing at home, you can enjoy at-home fitness and cooking classes, and more.