Staff Data Scientist, Weather

Waymo•Mountain View, CA

37d•Hybrid

About The Position

Waymo is seeking a Staff Data Scientist, Weather to lead key initiatives for modeling weather patterns and their impact on Waymo’s ride hailing service. This role involves streamlining operational procedures to mitigate weather-related challenges in real time and measuring the performance of the Waymo Driver in adverse weather conditions. The position is hybrid and reports to the Data Science Lead for Driving Quality & Scope Expansion.

Requirements

Degree in a quantitative field (e.g. Statistics, Mathematics, Physics).
Either a PhD in a quantitative field and 8+ years of industry experience, or 12+ years of industry experience solving data science problems.
Experience working with and building models for spatio-temporal data.
Experience as a technical lead.
Experience working in highly cross-functional teams and championing data-driven culture.
Expertise using advanced statistical methods in an applied setting; familiarity with ML systems/models.
Demonstrated knowledge of data analysis libraries and packages in Python, R, and/or SQL.

Nice To Haves

PhD in a quantitative, weather-adjacent field (Atmospheric Science, Meteorology, Hydrology, etc.), and/or academic experience developing and applying statistical methods in those fields.
Experience working with third-party (e.g., public / private) weather data sources and integrating multiple data sources.
Experience solving problems related to weather modeling or prediction.
A demonstrated track record of independently driving data science projects to deliver business value.
Experience with large-scale evaluation frameworks for software development.

Responsibilities

Define and uphold a high bar for measurement rigor, ensuring reliable evaluation signals for deployment, scaling, and mitigation decisions.
Identify and resolve gaps in current evaluation signals to ensure they scale with Waymo’s business and provide necessary actionability for stakeholders.
Build pipelines and models integrating various weather-specific data sources to enhance Waymo’s weather intelligence and prediction capabilities.
Measure the performance of the Waymo driver in adverse/extreme weather conditions (fog, rain, snow, ice, hail, flooding) and communicate findings to senior stakeholders.
Develop scalable and repeatable analysis frameworks for multiple climate types, both domestically and internationally.
Optimize Waymo’s operational processes for addressing adverse/extreme weather across a wide range of geographical territories.
Develop a deep understanding of Waymo’s long-term roadmap and collaborate with leads in product, engineering, and systems engineering to unlock key deployment milestones.
Be an opinionated partner influencing roadmaps for engineering work to improve measurement capabilities.
Be an active technical contributor and technical lead to junior data scientists.
Frame and solve ambiguous problems by scoping technical priorities and innovating on statistical methods.
Champion data science excellence and provide constructive technical feedback within the team and across Waymo.