---
title: 'Staff Data Scientist, Weather at Waymo'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-data-scientist-weather-waymo-mountain-view-r1h54ktefdma'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Staff Data Scientist, Weather at Waymo

- **Company:** Waymo
- **Location:** Mountain View, CA / San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $251k–$310k
- **Posted:** 2026-07-06
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://careers.withwaymo.com/jobs?gh_jid=8031401

## Job description

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.

Rigorous evaluation of the Waymo Driver, including monitoring the performance of Waymo’s fleet in the field, is a critical part of scaling our ride hailing service and achieving Waymo’s ambitious goals. In this role, you will lead key initiatives for modeling weather patterns and their impact on Waymo’s ride hailing service, and streamlining Waymo’s operational procedures designed to mitigate weather-related challenges in real time and measuring the performance of the Waymo Driver in adverse weather conditions.

In this hybrid role you will report to the Data Science Lead for Driving Quality & Scope Expansion.

You will:

- Define and uphold a high bar for measurement rigor. Ensure we can confidently rely on the evaluation signals informing deployment, scaling, and mitigation decisions. Identify and work to resolve any gaps where current evaluation signals are not scaling with Waymo’s business or providing the necessary actionability for stakeholders.
- Build pipelines and models integrating a range of existing and novel weather-specific data sources (1P/2P/3P) to enhance Waymo’s weather intelligence and prediction capabilities.
- Measure the performance of the Waymo driver in adverse/extreme weather conditions (fog, rain, snow, ice, hail, flooding), providing input on Waymo’s readiness to scale in challenging weather contexts. Communicate these findings to senior stakeholders.
- Develop scalable and repeatable analysis frameworks that support multiple climate types, both domestically and internationally.
- Optimize Waymo’s operational processes for addressing adverse/extreme weather across a wide range of geographical territories, making them smarter, more responsive, and more efficient.
- Develop a deep understanding of Waymo’s long-term roadmap, and collaborate with leads in product, engineering, and systems engineering to unlock key deployment milestones. Be an opinionated partner influencing roadmaps for engineering work to improve our measurement capabilities.
- Be an active technical contributor on the team, as well as a technical lead to junior data scientists. Frame and solve ambiguous problems by scoping technical priorities and innovating on statistical methods. Champion data science excellence and provide constructive technical feedback within the team and across Waymo.

You have:

- Degree in a quantitative field (e.g. Statistics, Mathematics, Physics).
- Either a PhD in a quantitative field and 8+ years of industry experience, or 12+ years of industry experience solving data science problems.
- Experience working with and building models for spatio-temporal data.
- Experience as a technical lead.
- Experience working in highly cross-functional teams and championing data-driven culture.
- Expertise using advanced statistical methods in an applied setting; familiarity with ML systems/models.
- Demonstrated knowledge of data analysis libraries and packages in Python, R, and/or SQL.

We prefer:

- PhD in a quantitative, weather-adjacent field (Atmospheric Science, Meteorology, Hydrology, etc.), and/or academic experience developing and applying statistical methods in those fields.
- Experience working with third-party (e.g., public / private) weather data sources and integrating multiple data sources.
- Experience solving problems related to weather modeling or prediction.
- A demonstrated track record of independently driving data science projects to deliver business value.
- Experience with large-scale evaluation frameworks for software development.

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

## About Waymo

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company that develops and operates the Waymo Driver, a self-driving system used for ride-hailing and trucking, with a mission to be the world’s most trusted driver.
- **Entity Type**: Private (subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google)
- **Headquarters**: Mountain View, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2009 (as the Google self-driving car project); became an independent company under Alphabet in 2016
- **Founders**: The project was initiated by Sebastian Thrun (Google X), with key early contributions from Anthony Levandowski and others. Current leadership is Co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov, and Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Peña.

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Autonomous vehicles, self-driving technology, ride-hailing, autonomous trucking, mobility-as-a-service
- **Target customers**: B2C (riders via Waymo One), B2B (fleet operators, logistics companies, and partners), and enterprise (autonomous trucking and delivery)
- **Mission or purpose statement**: “To be the world’s most trusted driver.” Waymo aims to save lives, drive inclusive mobility, and improve the state of the planet by making transportation safer, more accessible, and sustainable.

## Products & Services
- **Waymo One**: The world’s first commercial autonomous ride-hailing service. Offers fully driverless rides to the public in Metro Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The fleet is now all-electric (Jaguar I-PACE).
- **Waymo Via**: Autonomous trucking and logistics service for freight movement, operating with partners to move goods on highways.
- **Waymo Driver**: The company’s core autonomous driving system (software + hardware stack). It is designed to be integrated into various vehicle platforms for ride-hailing, trucking, and delivery.
- **Waymo Open Dataset**: A publicly available dataset of autonomous driving sensor data, provided to researchers to accelerate breakthroughs in the field.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (as a private subsidiary of Alphabet). Alphabet’s market cap is ~$2 trillion (as of mid-2025). Waymo is considered Alphabet’s most valuable “Other Bet.”
- **Key Metric**: Over 20 million rider-only (fully autonomous) rides served as of early 2025. 94% fewer serious injury crashes compared to human drivers over the same distance in operating cities.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Alphabet Inc. (parent company). Partners include Jaguar Land Rover (vehicle supply), Daimler Trucks (trucking), and various fleet operators and delivery services.
- **Growth Signals**: Rapid geographic expansion (largest fully autonomous service area in the world at 180 sq miles in Phoenix); transition to an all-electric fleet; expansion into Los Angeles and San Francisco; growing public trust (93% rider satisfaction rate); continuous hiring across engineering, operations, and AI.

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-mover & scale**: Waymo is the only company operating a fully autonomous, commercial, paid ride-hailing service across multiple major US cities, with millions of real-world miles driven without a human safety driver.
- **Deep Alphabet backing**: Access to vast resources, AI talent (DeepMind/Google Brain), and infrastructure (Google Maps, Cloud, AI chips).
- **Safety track record**: Publicly released data showing a 82-94% reduction in injury-causing crashes compared to human drivers, building regulatory and public trust.
- **Full-stack approach**: In-house development of hardware (LIDAR, cameras, radar), software (perception, planning, simulation), and operations (fleet management, rider experience).

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling safely**: Expanding service areas (adding more cities and suburbs) while maintaining a strong safety record.
- **All-electric fleet**: Transitioning the entire Waymo One fleet to zero-emission vehicles (Jaguar I-PACE) to align with sustainability goals.
- **Trucking & logistics**: Growing Waymo Via to capture the massive autonomous trucking market, partnering with OEMs and shippers.
- **AI & simulation**: Using advanced AI (including large models and generative AI) to improve the Waymo Driver’s decision-making and simulation-based validation.
- **Accessibility & inclusive mobility**: Designing for riders with disabilities, older adults, and underserved communities to ensure transportation is available to all.

## Why Work Here
- **Impact**: Work on technology that directly saves lives (1.4M traffic deaths globally each year) and reshapes the future of transportation.
- **Culture**: Waymo describes itself as a place for “ambitious thinkers and relentless problem solvers” with a deep respect for getting every detail right. Values include safety, innovation, and responsibility.
- **Teams**: Opportunities across Software Engineering, Hardware Engineering, AI Foundations, Product & Design, Operations & Supply Chain, Safety, Policy, and General & Administrative roles.
- **Internships**: Strong early-career program with internships for Bachelors, Masters, MBA, and PhD candidates, often leading to full-time offers.
- **Hiring process**: Transparent and structured. Includes an initial recruiter screen, 1-2 phone/video interviews, and a virtual onsite (up to 5 interviews). Emphasizes problem-solving, collaboration, and real-time thinking. AI tools are not permitted during technical assessments to ensure fair evaluation.
- **Remote/hybrid policy**: The careers page lists both on-site and remote roles, with most engineering and operations roles based in Mountain View, San Francisco, or other US locations.
- **Benefits**: Top-notch benefits, unique learning opportunities, thoughtful community engagement, and meaningful gatherings. Specific perks are not detailed publicly but are described as comprehensive.

## Sources
1. [Waymo.com](https://waymo.com/) – Official company website (mission, history, safety data)
2. [Waymo About Page](https://waymo.com/about/) – Company history, leadership, and milestones
3. [Waymo Careers Page](https://careers.withwaymo.com/) – Culture, teams, hiring process, benefits
4. [Waymo Open Roles](https://careers.withwaymo.com/jobs/search) – Current job listings and departments
5. [Waymo How We Hire](https://careers.withwaymo.com/how-we-hire) – Interview process, tips, and accessibility

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