Onboard Software Performance Engineer (C++)

Waymo•Mountain View, CA

4h•$175,000 - $215,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Onboard Software Performance Engineer will work on Waymo’s Onboard Software Performance team, which ensures that vehicle systems meet strict performance requirements, including latency targets and allocated CPU, GPU, TPU, and RAM usage. The team works to provide reliable performance at scale while supporting rapid system evolution. The role focuses on improving modular architecture and frameworks, scaling compute use across vehicles and simulation, identifying performance bottlenecks across onboard systems, and collaborating with hardware teams to optimize software for Waymo’s hardware platform. It also involves supporting fast collision-avoidance response, developing performance evaluation and debugging processes, and improving resource usage for large-scale simulation in cloud data centers. This is a hybrid remote/in-office, full-time position. The expected base salary range is $175,000–$215,000 USD. Employees are also eligible for a discretionary annual bonus program, an equity incentive plan, and a company benefits program, subject to eligibility requirements.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, Physics, Mathematics, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
At least 3 years of experience as a software engineer or in a similar role.
At least 3 years of experience in C++.
At least 3 years of experience optimizing software using profile-guided techniques.

Nice To Haves

At least 2 years of experience in infrastructure, systems, or performance work optimizing end-to-end systems.
At least 2 years of experience working on a large-scale, high-complexity system supported by hundreds of engineers.
Experience in robotics.
Experience with low-level optimization techniques and frameworks such as SIMD and CUDA, and with machine-learning performance or frameworks.
Experience with evaluation techniques.

Responsibilities

Develop modular architecture improvements and frameworks that maximize performance and compute use and return on investment for driving quality.
Evolve vehicle and simulation compute usage to support continued scaling and fast system performance on vehicles and in data centers.
Collaborate with onboard teams to identify and improve compute performance bottlenecks across the software stack.
Collaborate with hardware teams to codesign hardware and software and optimize software performance on Waymo’s hardware platform.
Ensure reaction latency for collision avoidance and help design novel systems and architectures for fast nominal performance.
Develop high-scale performance evaluation, debugging, and software change management processes.
Improve resource usage for large-scale simulation in cloud data centers, including CPU use, latency, RAM usage, and decisions about which computations should run on CPU, GPU, or TPU.