Senior Staff Data Scientist, Perception

Location: Mountain View, CA USA

Department: Perception (7LT)

This role is part of Waymo's Perception Development Foundations (PDF) team. The PDF team's mission is to accelerate improvements to Waymo's Perception system by providing teams with cutting-edge Data, Model Development tools, and Evaluation frameworks. We focus on removing toil, increasing automation, and enhancing how models use data and how we measure performance.

In this hybrid role, you will report to a director of engineering.

You will:

• Define and own the overarching vision and multi-year strategy for determining the size, composition, and collection methods for datasets used in Perception model training and evaluation.

• Drive the design and organizational adoption of frameworks to estimate data needs based on model performance, scaling laws, generalization goals, and a deep understanding of the diversity in new geographies.

• Define and refine strategies for Perception evaluation datasets, ensuring they provide sufficient coverage and statistical power to measure progress and de-risk new deployments.

• Collaborate closely with Perception engineers, ML researchers, the Labeling organization, and Operations teams to translate strategic recommendations into actionable labeling plans.

• Analyze existing data sources to identify structural gaps, biases, and opportunities for more efficient data utilization.

• Establish and champion data-driven best practices for dataset design and data quality within the Perception organization, driving operational maturity.

• Establish the impact of the Data Science function within Perception as a hands-on IC, followed by building a small team.

You have:

• BS/MS and 10+ years of industry experience, or PhD + 8 years of industry experience in Statistics, Mathematics, Physics, Economics, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field.

• 8+ years of experience using analytics, statistical modeling, and machine learning to solve complex product, business, or autonomous systems problems.

• 5+ years of experience in coding (e.g., Python, R, SQL), querying databases, and statistical analysis.

• Proven ability to lead and deliver on highly ambiguous, high-impact technical projects in a self-directed environment.

• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with a track record of influencing cross-functional teams and senior leadership.

We prefer:

• Experience applying statistical and machine learning techniques to large-scale datasets.

• 6+ years of experience leading data analytics or data science initiatives, including defining strategy, roadmaps, and building functions from the ground up.

• Deep experience with data collection strategies, experimental design, sampling methodologies, and causal inference.

• A track record of mentoring other Data Scientists and driving adoption of new methods across an entire organization.