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Staff Vehicle Controls Engineer, Steering

Waymo · Mountain View, CA

Apply on Waymo ↗
Level
Senior
Team
Controls
Degree
Required (or equivalent experience)
Experience asked
7+ years
Industry
Automotive
Posted
30+ days ago

The role in 30 seconds

A senior controls role at Waymo (automotive) in Mountain View, CA. Up to 8 weeks of travel; (domestic and international) to support requirement implementation with partners or verification at test sites.

They ask for
7+ years · degree required (or equivalent experience)
Tools it names
Root cause, FMEA, APQP, Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ), Robotics

Read from the posting. The full description is below.

From the plant jobs report · week of October 19, 2026

Controls Engineer roles in California: typical posted base $123k–$179k.

Median of the low and high ends of 57 live postings that list pay, out of 112 controls engineer openings in California, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.

California plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →

How this role compares

Against 111 other live controls postings in California.

Base pay
Not listed in this posting

Typical $123k–$179k, from 55 postings that list pay.

Experience asked
More than usual (7+ vs 5+)

Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.

Skills these teams ask for most

  • Automation 67%
  • PLC 46%
  • ✓ Robotics 43%
  • ✓ Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ) 38%
  • ✓ Python 34%
  • ✓ Root cause 21%

✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.

Stands out: this posting asks for FMEA, APQP, which few similar roles mention. If you have it, lead with it.

It asks for 7+ years. If you're close, apply anyway: requirements are a wish list. Talk to someone doing this work there first.

At a glance

Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.

How to get in at this plant

Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.

  1. 1

    Pick 2–3 people on the Controls team at Waymo

    Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. Use the team search on this page to find them.

  2. 2

    Send a short, curious note

    One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.

  3. 3

    Turn a reply into a short call

    Questions worth asking about this team:

    • What does a normal week look like on your team?
    • How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
  4. 4

    Apply with someone vouching for you

    If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.

  5. 5

    Bring proof to the interview

    One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.

This plant: Waymo in Mountain View

5 other open roles at this site.

Full description from WaymoAs posted on their careers site.Show

requirements

(EPS and steer-by-wire) for the Waymo Driver through their full lifecycle, covering steering tracking performance, redundancy and safe behavior under faults

  • ✓Drive steering architecture and fault-tolerance trade studies, such as dual-wound motors, dual ECUs and leader/follower arbitration, redundant sensing, power and communication, degraded-assist levels and thermal derating, to deliver fail-operational steering
  • ✓Define and review steering fault monitors and the self-driving system's response to each fault (detection thresholds, debounce, latching and minimal-risk maneuvers), partnering with Functional Safety on ISO 26262 (ASIL D) safety concepts
  • ✓Serve as the technical lead with steering suppliers and vehicle OEM partners: review specifications, firmware release content and CAN/CAN-FD interface definitions, and drive supplier defects to closure across sample phases
  • ✓Lead root-cause investigations of steering issues found in HIL, on the test track and in the fleet, analyzing vehicle logs and CAN traces and building Python tools that automate analysis of fleet data
  • ✓Define verification strategy and sign off steering for driverless operation, covering steering performance (latency, bandwidth, rack speed, tracking error, tire-limit behavior), thermal and endurance cases, and evidence from HIL, track and fleet testing

requirements

definition and traceability, verification and validation, and HIL or vehicle-level testing

  • ✓Proficiency in Python or MATLAB for data and log analysis, and the ability to read C/C++
  • ✓Bachelor's Degree in a relevant Engineering or a related field (including ME, EE, CS, Robotics, Controls, Aerospace, etc.) or equivalent practical experience

requirements

  • ✓Up to 8 weeks of travel; (domestic and international) to support requirement implementation with partners or verification at test sites

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.

$230,000 — $284,000 USD

Show full description ↓

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.

Hardware Engineering is an innovative and collaborative group of electrical, mechanical, reliability, software and vehicle engineers. We design, build, and perfect the products which are the eyes and ears of Waymo's autonomous driving technology, and integrate those products into vehicle platforms. We're seeking curious and talented teammates to keep us moving in the right direction.

This role follows a hybrid work schedule and you will report to a Vehicle Systems Architecture Lead.

You will

  • •Own steering system

You have

  • •7+ years of experience developing and integrating safety-critical systems in the automotive, autonomous vehicle, aerospace, robotics, or related industries, with at least part of that time focused on steering systems
  • •Demonstrated ownership of system-level requirements, architecture or control strategy for an automotive steering system (EPS, steer-by-wire or rear-wheel steering) at an OEM, Tier 1 supplier or AV company
  • •Working knowledge of steering hardware and physics: rack, column and pinion EPS layouts, BLDC/PMSM motors and inverters, torque and angle sensing, rack force, and tire and vehicle dynamics basics
  • •Strong foundation in systems engineering principles such as

We prefer

  • •Experience with redundant or fail-operational steering (dual-channel EPS or steer-by-wire), especially on L4 self-driving platforms
  • •Experience applying ISO 26262 to steering: ASIL D safety concepts, FMEA/FTA, and how a supplier implements microcontroller safety mechanisms (e.g., lockstep cores, built-in self-tests and runtime reset limits)
  • •Proven experience in technical supplier management, including authoring Statements of Work (SOW) or Requirement Specifications, leading technical design reviews, and managing firmware releases for safety-critical ECUs
  • •Hands-on experience with Vector CANoe/CANalyzer, dSPACE, and vehicle-dynamics tools such as CarSim or IPG CarMaker
  • •Experience working within standard automotive development and production release processes for ECUs and firmware, such as APQP, phase gates and A/B/C/D samples
  • •Proficiency in Korean or Japanese, to support technical reviews with partners

Travel

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