About the role
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. The Field Response Team protects Waymo's operations by detecting, mitigating, and preventing real-world autonomous driving issues before they have a significant impact.
The team is involved across the entire issue-identification and resolution lifecycle. As we expand our operations to Tokyo, we are building out local expertise to navigate region-specific driving environments and support our global 24/7 deployment cycle. You will: Develop systems to detect issues in the field not only specific to the Japanese driving environment but across all of Waymo’s international markets. Hire, mentor, and lead a small team of software engineers, fostering a culture of high ownership, technical excellence, and rapid execution. Build systems and tools to help monitor the fleet as Waymo continues to scale including new software roll outs, new geos and new platforms. Partner closely with Data Science, Onboard Software, Mapping, and other engineering teams to identify system bottlenecks and design end-to-end technical solutions. Lead strategic investments to improve the quality of existing diagnostic signals, ensuring they scale seamlessly across all of Waymo's geographies and Operational Design Domains (ODDs). You have: BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field of study. 5-7+ years of hands-on software development experience building highly scalable, reliable, and performant systems. 1-2+ years of experience directly managing and mentoring software engineering teams. Strong system design capabilities and fluent coding skills in C++, Python, and SQL. Proven ability to tackle highly open-ended technical and system design challenges with a structured, first-principles approach. Growth mindset, eagerness to learn, and a genuine excitement for the future of autonomous driving. Professional or native-level fluency in both Japanese and English to seamlessly bridge communication across international markets. We prefer: Deep familiarity with driving dynamics, local infrastructure, and road environments in Japan (specifically Tokyo), with an intuitive understanding of local traffic etiquette and pedestrian behavior. Prior experience in mapping, localization, geospatial engineering, or high-volume data pipelines within the autonomous vehicle, robotics, or geographic information systems (GIS) industries