The exciting days have come and gone
The exciting days have come and gone
Waymo is doing this right and is definitely ahead of the pack. Fully driverless cars are very far away, and many teams are making it to the 95% mark, but that last few percent is hard.
We have a real big group of drivers and test systems, and I do think Waymo will be the first to get there, but not anytime soon.
3 things:
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There is a really long time horizon between the work you are doing today and its impact. Both that these cars aren't going to make a real impact for another 20+ years, but the company is also moving slower and being very cautious these days, so your code doesn't ship for months to years now.
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The remaining challenges are relatively boring. All the cool sims, sensors, and pipelines are running solid. We're deep in the land of tinkering.
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The best team is long gone. Few OG Googlers still on the team, combined with the above, makes life here more and more boring by the day.
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Waymo Interview Questions
Waymo Interview Experiences
Senior Software Engineer
Short introduction to yourself and interviewer, then start coding. Ask some questions to the interviewer at the end. Two coding questions in a round; be well prepared for edge cases because they really focus on it.
Senior Software Engineer
1 phone interview and 4 rounds of onsite interviews. Asked general algorithm and design questions. Onsite interviews: 2 rounds in the morning, followed by lunch with the manager, then another 2 rounds in the afternoon.
Senior Software Engineer
The phone interview was very normal. I passed pretty easily. Onsite, I answered all programming questions. The last interviewer asked some questions which I was finally able to answer after a lot of clarifying questions.
Senior Software Engineer
Mountain View, California, United StatesMarch 31, 2026Short introduction to yourself and interviewer, then start coding. Ask some questions to the interviewer at the end. Two coding questions in a round; be well prepared for edge cases because they really focus on it.
Senior Software Engineer
Mountain View, California, United StatesMay 1, 20191 phone interview and 4 rounds of onsite interviews. Asked general algorithm and design questions. Onsite interviews: 2 rounds in the morning, followed by lunch with the manager, then another 2 rounds in the afternoon.
Senior Software Engineer
San Jose, California, United StatesJune 1, 2018The phone interview was very normal. I passed pretty easily. Onsite, I answered all programming questions. The last interviewer asked some questions which I was finally able to answer after a lot of clarifying questions.
