Waymo Interview Questions

Waymo's Perception Engineer new-grad loop in 2026 is a recruiter screen, an OA, and a 5-round virtual onsite with significant emphasis on computer vision, sensor fusion, and the ML pipelines that turn LIDAR and camera data into tracked objects. Perception is the entry point of the autonomy stack — bugs here cascade everywhere — so the bar is calibrated higher than generalist SWE.

Waymo's new-grad SWE loop in 2026 is a recruiter screen, an OA, a phone screen, and a 4-round virtual onsite. Backend is C++ heavy with Python for tooling and ML workflows. New-grads do not need autonomous-driving experience but should be comfortable in C++ and have at least one strong CS-fundamentals story (operating systems, distributed systems, or computer vision).

Waymo's SWE intern loop in 2026 is a recruiter screen, an OA, and a 2-3 round virtual interview. The intern program is small and selective; Waymo prefers students with prior computer-vision, robotics, or systems coursework. C++ proficiency is strongly preferred. Conversion to new-grad is the typical path for top performers.