Staff Software Engineer, Privacy
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.
As Waymo prepares to bring the Waymo Driver to European markets, we are seeking a Privacy Engineer to lead the technical architectural design and implementation of our global privacy systems.
In this role, you will bridge the gap between legal requirements (GDPR) and technical reality. You will not just "manage" compliance; you will build the actual engines, data pipelines, and anonymization frameworks that allow our autonomous vehicles to operate in strict regulatory environments. You will work closely with Legal, Product, and AI/ML teams to ensure that Privacy by Design is baked into our sensor data ingestion, mapping technologies, and rider experience from day one.
You will:
- Architect for EU Compliance: Design and build data handling systems that satisfy strict GDPR requirements, "Right to be Forgotten" automation, and consent management frameworks for European riders.
- Sensor Data Anonymization: Develop and optimize computer vision and ML pipelines to automatically detect and blur faces, license plates, and other PII from camera/Lidar data at the edge (on-vehicle) and in the cloud before it enters our training sets.
- Privacy Infrastructure: Write scalable code (C++/Java/Kotlin) to enforce retention policies, access controls, and data minimization across Waymo’s distributed infrastructure.
- Partner with Waymo’s Legal and Policy teams to translate complex regulatory texts (e.g., the EU Data & AI Act) into concrete engineering specifications and system requirements.
- Threat Modeling: Conduct privacy impact assessments (PIA) and threat modeling for new features, specifically focusing on cross-border data transfer risks and third-party vendor integration.
You have:
- BS degree in Computer Science, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
- 8+ years of experience in software engineering with a focus on privacy, security, or data infrastructure.
- Proficiency in one or more general-purpose programming languages (e.g., Python, C++, Java).
- Deep understanding of GDPR.
- Experience working with large-scale data processing frameworks (e.g., Flume, MapReduce, etc..) and cloud infrastructure.
We prefer:
- Prior experience helping a US-based tech company launch products in the European Economic Area (EEA) or UK.
- Familiarity with privacy-preserving machine learning techniques, such as Differential Privacy, Federated Learning, or Homomorphic Encryption.
- Experience building first-class user facing products.
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
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