2026 Summer Intern
MS/PhD, Systems Engineer, Rider Comfort
Posted on 10/31/2025

Waymo
Compensation Overview
$70/hr
Mountain View, CA, USA
Hybrid
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.
Waymo interns partner with leaders in the industry on projects that create impact to the company. We believe learning is a two-way street: applying your knowledge while providing you with opportunities to expand your skill-set. Interns are an important part of our culture and our recruiting pipeline. Join us at Waymo for a fun and rewarding internship!
You will:
- Develop a systems approach to rider comfort, focusing on motion control issues (e.g. jerky motion, improper speed, avoiding potholes).
- Research prior art in comfort among industry, academia, and intra-Waymo (existing features & metrics).
- Develop metrics to measure comfort. Write SQL to query large-scale over Waymo’s 2,000+ vehicle fleet. Look for trends and correlations (e.g. surface street vs highway).
- Draft requirements to formalize testable performance expectations. Consult with test engineers to establish V&V methods.
- Propose driving behavior changes. Work with SWEs to implement proof of concept, and run simulation or in-vehicle eval to measure improvements or regressions.
You have:
- Python or other scripting language (e.g. R, MATLAB, JavaScript)
- Statistics or data science or signal processing
- Newtonian physics (F=ma) or biomechanics or kinesiology or other dynamics/mechanics
- User experience (UX) or other human factors / physiological coursework
- Technical writing
We prefer:
- SQL or other query language
- Automotive, aerospace, or controls engineering
- Vehicle dynamics or other advanced physics / dynamics coursework
- Eager to work with cross-functional groups on a multi-faceted ambiguous problem.
Note: This will be a hybrid onsite internship position. We will accept resumes on a rolling basis until the role is filled. To be in consideration for multiple roles, you will need to apply to each one individually - please apply to the top 3 roles you are interested in.
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