Staff ML Accelerator Architect

Waymo· Mountain View, CA, USA; New York, New York, USA· Compute (7LR)

Posted 2026-10-20

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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 Compute Team is tasked with a critical and exciting mission: We deliver the compute platform responsible for running the fully autonomous vehicle's software stack. To achieve our mission, we architect and create high-performance custom silicon; we develop system-level compute architectures that push the boundaries of performance, power, and latency; and we collaborate closely with many other teammates to ensure we design and optimize hardware and software for maximum performance. We are a multidisciplinary team seeking curious and talented teammates to work on one of the world's highest performance automotive compute platforms.

In this role, you will report to a Hardware Engineering Manager.

You will:

Analyze inference workloads and map them efficiently to hardware, proposing novel HW-friendly implementations and projecting performance
Build scalable tools for performance modeling and evaluation of inference workloads
Work closely with compiler and model developers to influence engineering tradeoffs and future model architectures
Architect, simulate and design novel hardware solutions for state-of-the-art autonomous driving models
Interact with cross-functional engineering teams to identify opportunities and realize architectural vision

You have:

M.S. degree in Computer Science or Computer Engineering or equivalent practical experience
10+ years on designing/architecting complex, high performance architectures - CPUs, GPUs and/or ML accelerators - in the industry or through doctoral research
3+ years experience with machine learning architectures, acceleration and model optimization
Deep knowledge of ML model architectures and their compute characteristics (bottlenecks, optimization opportunities)
Strong programming and algorithmic problem solving skills

We prefer:

Track record of analyzing workloads and architecting, delivering novel HW+SW solutions to vastly improve performance, efficiency for ML inference
Proven ability leading cross-functional teams to deliver your architectural vision
Familiarity with novel semiconductor technologies and their tradeoffs across the full hardware stack
Experience with microarchitecture design (SystemVerilog or HLS)

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

Job description