Research Scientist, RL for Autonomous Planning and World Modelling at Waymo
Job Description
Waymo’s AI Foundations team is hiring a research scientist in reinforcement learning for autonomous trajectory planning. The role takes part in post-training and evaluating Waymo’s Foundation World Model, develops RL and distillation methods for planning, and brings promising outside research into Waymo’s RL infrastructure through careful ablations. It is hybrid and reports to a principal scientist.
At a glance
- Team: AI Foundations
- Location: Mountain View, San Francisco, Kirkland or New York (hybrid)
- Pay: From $204,000 a year base, as listed
- Apply: open until filled (re-checked 14 October 2026)
What you would do
- Take part in post-training and evaluation of Waymo’s Foundation World Model
- Research and develop RL and distillation methods for vehicle trajectory planning
- Bring new research into Waymo’s RL infrastructure and run rigorous ablations to find what scales
- Partner with engineering teams to move results into the Waymo Driver
Why this role matters
Waymo already runs driverless ride-hailing, so its research problems come from a real, large-scale system. Using RL to improve planning on top of a learned world model is one of the most active directions in autonomous driving, and results here can affect how millions of rides are driven.
What Waymo is looking for
- Research experience in reinforcement learning
- Strong machine learning implementation skills
- Ability to design rigorous experiments and ablations
Nice to have
- Experience with world models, imitation learning or planning for robots or vehicles
Pay and location
Waymo’s posting gives a base salary range starting at $204,000 a year, plus bonus, equity and benefits; the exact range depends on location.
How to apply
Apply through the official Waymo job posting. Waymo’s posting does not give a closing date, so the role is open until filled; ResearchJobs.in will re-check this listing on 14 October 2026. Check the posting for location and work-authorisation details before you apply.
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Hiring institution: Waymo
Official advertisement: careers.withwaymo.com
How to prepare for this application
- RL depth: lead with RL research, ideally on real or large-scale problems.
- Ablations: show how you tested which parts of a method mattered.
- World models: any work combining RL with learned models is relevant.
- Four locations: the role is open in Mountain View, San Francisco, Kirkland and New York.
About Waymo
Waymo, which began as Google's self-driving car project in 2009, runs a fully driverless ride-hail service in several US cities. Its research teams work with Alphabet's other research groups on machine learning for perception, prediction, planning and simulation.
