Lead Technical Program Manager, Simulation

Lead Technical Program Manager, Simulation

Location: Mountain View, CA or San Francisco, CA (Hybrid)
Job ID: 5108

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™ to improve access to mobility while helping save thousands of lives 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. It has completed more than 10 million rider-only trips, autonomously driven over 100 million miles on public roads, and accumulated tens of billions of miles in simulation across more than 15 U.S. states.

Waymo’s Technical Program Managers and Program Managers are accountable for roadmap execution through thoughtful cross-functional planning, organizational clarity, and proactive risk management. Working through complex technical and operational challenges with no established playbooks, the team partners closely with every function across Waymo to drive real-world deployment of the Waymo Driver across platforms and geographies.

In this hybrid role, you will report to a TPM Director.

You Will

• Partner with Simulation, Machine Learning Research (AI Foundations), Perception, and Planner leadership to define and drive the long-term vision and strategy for Waymo's Simulation and ML Evaluation platforms.

• Drive programs that integrate simulation deeply into the machine learning development lifecycle, creating a seamless and reliable path for model training, offline evaluation, and validation.

• Lead complex, cross-functional programs that platformize and scale evaluation infrastructure by incorporating ML-based simulation and advanced technologies to accelerate developer productivity.

• Own program resourcing, budget allocation, and capacity planning for the Simulation and Evaluation organization, forecasting compute and infrastructure needs while optimizing utilization.

• Navigate ambiguity and manage critical cross-functional dependencies while serving as a trusted technical partner to Engineering and Product leadership.

• Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing team of Technical Program Managers, fostering technical excellence, accountability, and professional growth.

You Have

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

• 3+ years of experience directly managing and developing teams of Technical Program Managers or software engineers.

• Proven experience leading complex technical programs involving machine learning platforms, including data pipelines, training systems, evaluation frameworks, or ML infrastructure.

• Demonstrated success leading large-scale, cross-functional programs end-to-end while managing timelines, risks, and dependencies across senior stakeholders.

• Strong technical judgment with the ability to contribute to strategic technical direction, evaluate architectural trade-offs, and balance development velocity with quality.

• 10+ years of experience as a Technical Program Manager in software engineering, large-scale infrastructure, or machine learning environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with large-scale model evaluation, including Foundation Models, LLMs, VLMs, closed-loop simulation, and correlating offline evaluation metrics with real-world product performance.

• Experience with cloud-based ML platforms, high-performance computing (TPUs/GPUs), and multi-petabyte-scale data management and validation.

• Familiarity with advanced simulation technologies, including ML-based scene generation using techniques such as NeRFs, Gaussian Splatting, diffusion models, GANs, CNNs, and reactive agent modeling.

• Experience building or managing ML developer platforms and tooling that simplify complex engineering workflows.

• Demonstrated success driving organizational transformation, simplifying cross-functional interfaces, and improving engineering efficiency.

• Master's degree or PhD in a technical field related to AI, machine learning, or robotics.

Compensation

The expected base salary range for this full-time U.S. position is:

$272,000 – $336,000 USD

Actual compensation will depend on location, experience, education, and other job-related factors.

In addition to base salary, Waymo offers:

• Annual discretionary bonus

• Equity incentives

• Comprehensive employee benefits

Equal Opportunity

Waymo is proud to be an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive workplace. Employment decisions are based solely on qualifications, experience, and business needs. Waymo does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, military status, family status, pregnancy, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic.

Waymo is committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the hiring process for candidates with disabilities.