Senior Data Scientist, Simulation Capacity Optimization
- Salary
- $213,000 - $263,000
- Level
- Senior
Not stated in the posting: work type, visa.
Open. First seen 3 October 2026.
About the role
Waymo's standard text
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.
Our Simulation team is at the heart of this mission, enabling us to safely and rapidly iterate on the Waymo Driver. We run billions of miles of simulations, creating a massive and complex demand for technical infrastructure resources (CPU, GPU, TPU, Storage).
We are establishing a new team called CORPIO (SimEval Capacity Operations, Resource Planning, Infrastructure Optimization). This team is tasked with building a critical capability for Waymo: data-driven, strategic capacity planning and resource optimization. We are looking for a Senior Data Scientist to bridge the gap between sophisticated mathematical modeling and production-scale infrastructure automation.
You will be responsible for building the technical systems that forecast demand, optimize resource allocation, and automate infrastructure management, ensuring our simulation environment is both high-performance and cost-effective.
As a Senior Data Scientist on the CORPIO team, you will:
- Infrastructure Modeling & Automation: Design and build production-grade systems and pipelines to automate capacity planning, demand management, and quota allocation.
- Quantitative Forecasting: Implement and maintain sophisticated models for infrastructure demand forecasting, incorporating architectural shifts, peak loads, and time-shifting opportunities.
- Resource Optimization Algorithms: Develop and deploy algorithms to optimize resource utilization across a heterogeneous fleet (CPU, GPU, TPU) and diverse supply models (on-demand vs. reserved).
- Data Pipeline Engineering: Architect and maintain robust data pipelines that ingest infrastructure telemetry and demand driver signals to feed forecasting and optimization engines.
- Outcome Analysis: Build systems to translate resource plans into tangible outcomes (e.g., queue lengths, user demand fulfillment) and develop attribution models for capacity imbalances.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Simulation, Infrastructure, and Finance teams to translate business requirements into technical specifications and automated solutions.
- Technical Leadership: Provide technical guidance on the intersection of quantitative modeling and systems engineering, mentoring junior members and influencing the technical roadmap for CORPIO.
You have:
- Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field (e.g. Statistics, Mathematics, Physics) or equivalent practical experience.
- 5+ years of industry experience solving data science problems, or a PhD in a quantitative field and 3+ years of industry experience
- Expertise using advanced statistical methods in an applied setting; familiarity with ML systems/models
- Strong background in quantitative methods, such as optimization, statistical modeling, or time-series analysis.
- Demonstrated knowledge of Python/SQL/R data analysis libraries and packages
We prefer:
- PhD or Master's degree in a quantitative field
- Experience in Capacity Engineering or Infrastructure Optimization at scale.
- Familiarity with ML-driven forecasting and optimization techniques.
- Experience with financial modeling or cost-benefit analysis of technical infrastructure.
- Experience building automation tools for resource management and quota allocation.
- Knowledge of simulation workloads or high-performance computing (HPC) environments.
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
$213,000—$263,000 USD
What this role asks for
Standard for data science / ML roles
Python · SQL
Common in data science / ML postings at any company.
82% of this description is written for the role. The rest is Waymo's standard text, folded away below.
Read against Waymo's other open postings on this site.
The team: Simulation (7XW) HIRES STEADILY
This role is one of 14 open in Simulation (7XW). 2 were posted in the last 30 days and the oldest in June: a team that hires all year rather than one being built.
WHAT THE TEAM WORKS WITH, ACROSS ITS POSTINGS
C++ (12 of 14), Python (11 of 14), Machine Learning (10 of 14), Deep Learning (5 of 14), SQL (5 of 14), PyTorch (4 of 14), LLM (3 of 14)
OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM
- Staff Software Engineer, TLM, Quantitative Evaluations posted Oct 6
- Senior Software Engineer, Eval Efficiency & Optimization posted Oct 2
- Staff Tech Lead Software Engineer, Vehicle Realism Platform posted Sep 18
- Staff Tech Lead Manager, Machine Learning, Simulator Evaluation posted Sep 17
- Staff Software Engineer (TLM), Field Response posted Jul 20
- Sr. Staff Software Engineer, DUE Experience posted Jul 15
- Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Simulation posted Jul 13
- Senior Staff Engineer, Agentic AI Engineering posted Jul 9
- Staff Software Engineer - Simulation Realism posted Jun 30
- Staff ML Engineer, Generative Model Performance & Efficiency posted Jun 29
- Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Simulation Realism posted Jun 26
- Staff Software Engineer, DUE Experience posted Jun 22
- Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Simulation Evaluation posted Jun 13
From the team and dates on Waymo's own job board.
See Data Scientist salaries in the United States →
Similar jobs
- Data Scientist at Toyota North America
Shares 2 skills: SQL, Python · same country - Data Scientist (Quant Modeling) - TikTok at TikTok
Shares 2 skills: SQL, Python · same country - Sr. Data Platform Engineer (Ai & Data Platforms) at Apple
Shares 2 skills: SQL, Python · Senior level · same country - Senior Software Enginer, Data and Integrations at Elicit
Shares 2 skills: SQL, Python · Senior level · same country - Senior Data Engineer, GMS Data Team at Planet
Shares 2 skills: SQL, Python · Senior level · same country - Senior Product Manager, New Platform Discovery and Validation at Waymo
Also at this company
Is this your posting and you want it taken down? Email info@careerholo.com.