Senior Staff Android Engineer, In-Car Experience

You will

• Define and drive the overarching, multi-year technical vision and architecture across the entire in-car experience, bridging low-level vehicle/hardware bring-up, Android OS platform services, and rider-facing applications.
• Serve as the principal technical lead across multiple engineering teams (ICX, App Platform Infra, and UXC Bring-up), setting architectural direction and steering the integration of high-impact features such as real-time 3D perception views, passenger controls, and third-party app ecosystems.
• Lead from the front as a hands-on technical authority, actively conducting system design reviews, diagnosing complex low-level bottlenecks (e.g., AOSP/OS stability, graphics rendering performance, IPC latency), and establishing rigorous standards for code health and reliability.
• Champion Waymo's DevAI initiative within in-car engineering by driving the adoption of AI-native developer tooling, agentic workflows, and automated evaluation systems to radically improve team velocity and software quality.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, UX, Systems Engineering, and Hardware teams to align technical trade-offs with product vision and translate complex requirements into clear, actionable technical roadmaps.
• Act as an organizational force multiplier by mentoring senior engineers and tech leads, fostering technical excellence, and driving consensus across complex, multi-system initiatives.

You have

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of setting strategic technical direction and delivering complex, large-scale systems as a senior technical lead (L6/L7 equivalent).
• Deep technical expertise spanning Android/AOSP platform development (system services, HAL, IPC/Binder, C++ native layers), with proven experience building core OS and framework capabilities beyond standard application-layer development.
• Extensive experience with modern client architecture, systems programming, and modern UI frameworks (Kotlin, Jetpack Compose), as well as complementary distributed backend systems.
• Strong system design expertise with a demonstrated ability to decouple monolithic architectures, design reusable platform infrastructure, and optimize for resource-constrained onboard hardware environments.
• Demonstrated leadership in developer productivity and AI-native workflows, with practical experience integrating DevAI tools, LLMs, or agentic systems to accelerate software development lifecycles.

We prefer

• Master's or PhD degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• Experience with automotive software environments, Android Automotive OS (AAOS), or vehicle hardware integration.
• Proven track record designing and maintaining extensible application frameworks and SDKs for third-party developer ecosystems.
• Experience with hardware-accelerated graphics pipelines (OpenGL ES, Vulkan), display composers, or real-time 3D rendering.
• Experience operating in safety-critical, high-reliability, or low-latency systems.

Pay and benefits

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 $298,000 - $368,000 USD