Six Figure Work

Staff Software Engineer, Collision Avoidance Testing

Waymo

Company websitewaymo.com (Waymo, opens in new tab)

Base salary $251K  to $310K

Employer-published annual base salary, USD. Advertised base range in Mountain View, CA +1 more

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  • LocationMountain View, CA +1 more
  • WorkplaceWorkplace not stated
  • Status at last checkSource accepting applications when checked
  • Last checked (49 min ago) · observed since
All places named
  • Mountain View, CA
  • San Francisco, CA

About this job

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.

Waymo's Systems Engineering team works together to blend software and hardware systems in groundbreaking new ways. We set the high performance standards that ensure our vehicles run smoothly and keep passengers safe, then design and perform the tests that validate that performance. We're looking for talented teammates who’ll help us maintain strong teamwork and are passionate about driving results.

This role follows a hybrid work schedule and you will report to Systems Engineering Leadership. 

You will:

  • Architect software and design systems that enable scalable and maintainable testing of autonomous vehicle collision avoidance capabilities
  • Establish strategic technical partnerships with the simulation team to co-design well-defined and extensible APIs 
  • Integrate, test, and validate the latest state of the art simulation technologies with our collision avoidance testing framework 
  • Develop new tools and capabilities to automate test quality and performance 
  • Provide mentorship to junior engineers 

You have:

  • BS in Computer Science or a related field 
  • 10+ years of experience in Software Engineering 
  • Demonstrated ability to design robust, scalable, and maintainable software architectures and APIs
  • Strong C++ and Python coding skills 
  • Technical leadership skills, with the ability to drive strategy, influence across teams, and mentor other engineers

We prefer:

  • Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science or a related field 
  • Experience in autonomous vehicles or robotics 
  • Experience with simulation 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

$251,000—$310,000 USD

Source: Waymo on Greenhouse · View original posting (opens in new tab)

Pay in context

This role's base floor ($251,000) is above 91% of the 4,300 Software Engineering roles in California listed on this site; 14 others list the same floor. Their median floor is $176,100; the middle half runs from $149,100 to $204,000.

Only jobs on this site count, and each one publishes a base salary of $100,000 or more, so this compares six-figure jobs with each other, not with the whole market. Computed Nov 6, 2026.

This range next to 6 other live Waymo roles with the nearest advertised base floor
Chart as a table
This range next to 6 other live Waymo roles with the nearest advertised base floor
RolePublished base
Staff Software Engineer, Collision Avoidance Testing (this listing)$251K - $310K
Staff Tech Lead Software Engineer, Vehicle Realism Platform$251K - $310K
Staff Research Scientist, Foundation Models Recipes$251K - $310K
Staff Software Engineer, Compute Reliability$251K - $310K
Senior Data Engineer$251K - $310K
Staff Machine Learning Engineer, AI Infrastructure$251K - $310K
Staff Software Engineer / Technical Lead Manager$251K - $319K

Same $100K to $400K scale as every card. All Waymo roles · How to read the bar

Observed changes

  1. Began meeting the published-salary criteria
  2. First observed on the employer's board
Observed since
Employer-stated posting date
2026-08-06
Where this pay comes from

Location as the employer wrote it: Mountain View, CA, USA; San Francisco, CA, USA

$251,000—$310,000 USD

Method
Employer text, read with fixed rules and re-verified
Checked
Rule set
us-base-v2

The pay passage appears in the employer's own job text. Fixed, deterministic rules located it, and the passage below was checked against the stored copy of the posting.

What we verified

  • The pay figures come from the employer's own listing, quoted exactly above.
  • The pay is an annual base salary in US dollars with a minimum of at least $100,000.
  • The role was publicly listed on the employer's job board when last checked.

We do not verify what the employer will actually offer, whether the employer is still recruiting for the role, or anything beyond what the employer published. Full methodology.