Safety Researcher - Severity and Safety Impact

The Waymo Safety team works to promote and help to continuously improve the safety of Waymo’s fully autonomous driving technology. Our experts develop safety goals and strategies, and conduct safety engineering analyses to ensure safety is being considered throughout the design and development of our vehicles. The team develops and promotes safety strategies and policies for autonomous vehicles for its work with regulatory authorities, lawmakers, law enforcement and public and non-profit organizations. Our Safety Team also helps advise on compliance with applicable environmental, health, and safety regulations.

In this remote role, you will report to a Safety Research Manager.

You will:

• Plan and conduct safety research projects in the area of safety impact and severity estimation, leveraging state-of-the-art methodologies and/or by establishing research partnerships with experts in the field
• Publish and present peer-reviewed safety research in leading safety journals and conferences
• Acquire and maintain safety-related data sources to enable research
• Support, and if necessary lead, internal safety assessments that set design and/or evaluation targets
• Support, and if necessary lead, development of internal safety assessment practices related to the Waymo Safety Framework and Safety Case in the areas of severity estimation and scenario-based testing

You have:

• Expertise in vehicle safety, safety impact assessment, injury risk assessment, safe system approach, scenario-based testing, or other applicable fields
• Ability to generate research questions and prioritize research direction that will have the most impact in achieving Waymo’s goals
• Proven scientific writing experience (e.g., peer reviewed publication history)
• Engaging and clear scientific presentation skills (e.g., presenting at scientific conferences)
• Quantitative analysis skills, including the ability to perform statistical modeling and data analytics using computational software
• Ability to work with cross functional engineering teams to deliver analysis to support safety evaluation and product development

We prefer:

• An advanced research degree (Ph.D. or equivalent)
• Ability to perform quantitative analysis using languages such as R, python, and SQL
• Research leadership experience (e.g., grant writing, supervision)
• International safety research perspectives (e.g., Europe, Japan)
• Familiarity with vehicle automation technologies

Travel requirements:

• Ability to travel to scientific conferences and company events around the world ~15% of the time