Waymo interview questions

Showing 1–30 of 90 results

• 2D Max Pooling That Also Returns the Coordinates of Each Window MaximumMedium

  Implement 2D max pooling with a k-by-k window and a stride, and for each window also return the row and column of its maximum, breaking ties by smallest row then column. Tests window indexing without padding, output sizing, and argmax bookkeeping.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Analyze User Ride Activity with SQLMedium

  Solve four SQL analytics tasks on ride and user tables: inactive users, monthly rides and ratings, low-frequency users by city, and first-versus-third active-month ratings. The walkthrough emphasizes outer joins, date boundaries, aggregation grain, window functions, and weighted averages.

  WaymoData ScientistData Manipulation (SQL/Python)Online Assessment
• Assess Routing Experiment ValidityMedium

  This question evaluates experimental analysis and statistical hypothesis testing skills, including data preparation and joining, interpretation of p-values, and understanding of causal inference and threats to validity in A/B tests.

  WaymoData ScientistStatistics & MathOnline Assessment
• Build a Debounced Autocomplete Search BarMedium

  This problem evaluates your ability to implement a robust, performant search component that handles asynchronous race conditions and user accessibility requirements.

  WaymoFrontend EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
• Build a React naval boardMedium

  This question evaluates a candidate's ability to design frontend state and UI logic—specifically React component structure, state management, click-handling semantics, and derived sunk-detection logic for a Battleship-style board.

  WaymoFrontend EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen
• Build an Autocomplete Search Bar With a Hand-Written DebounceMedium

  Build an autocomplete search bar that fetches suggestions as the user types, with a hand-written debounce. Tests timer handling across renders, out-of-order responses and request cancellation, keyboard navigation, accessibility, cleanup and testing with fake timers.

  WaymoFrontend EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
• Build an Expression That Reaches a TargetMedium

  This problem tests your ability to use recursion with backtracking or dynamic programming to partition a sequence of numbers and apply operators to satisfy a target value.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Can You Reach the Last Index?Medium

  This problem tests your ability to determine reachability in a sequence using greedy strategy or dynamic programming to optimize pathfinding.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Character at a Position in a Run-Length Encoded String Without DecodingMedium

  Given a run-length encoded string such as B1A2E3C1, return the character at each queried position of the decoded sequence without decoding it. Runs can be very long, so the task tests prefix sums over run lengths and fast lookup per query.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Compare Two Rare-Event Rates with Different ExposureMedium

  Compare sparse event rates across unequal mileage using a two-sample Poisson framework, exact conditional testing, and honest uncertainty.

  WaymoData ScientistStatistics & MathTechnical Screen
• Compute ETA between two map nodesMedium

  This problem tests your ability to implement Dijkstra's algorithm to find the shortest path in a weighted directed graph representing a road network.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Compute Max Pooling Values and CoordinatesMedium

  This problem tests your ability to manipulate 2D arrays, manage sliding window bounds, and track metadata (indices) efficiently during a data transformation task.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Compute Ride Metrics in SQLMedium

  This question evaluates SQL data manipulation skills, covering joins between normalized tables, timezone-aware date filtering and calendar-month grouping, aggregation and NULL-aware averages, counting distinct and inactive users, and cohort/retention analysis.

  WaymoData ScientistData Manipulation (SQL/Python)Online Assessment
• Compute probability match lasts 5 gamesEasy

  This question evaluates understanding of discrete probability, sequential best-of-n match modeling, Monte Carlo simulation for probability estimation, and interval estimation for proportions.

  WaymoData ScientistStatistics & MathTechnical Screen
• Conservative Wait Estimates Cut Conversion and Pickup Time: Did Efficiency Improve?Medium

  A ride service showed riders conservative pickup-time estimates; afterwards conversion fell 5% and actual time to pickup fell 25%. Decide whether fleet efficiency really improved and list alternative explanations, testing selection effects and metric design.

  WaymoData ScientistAnalytics & ExperimentationOnsite
• Count Squares Formed by Intersections of Vertical and Horizontal SegmentsMedium

  Given vertical and horizontal line segments defined by start and end points, count the axis-aligned squares whose four corners are all segment intersection points. Tests intersection detection, square enumeration, and faster ways to find which segments cross each other.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Count Squares Formed by SegmentsHard

  Count distinct axis-aligned squares whose full sides are covered by horizontal and vertical integer-coordinate segments. Normalize and merge collinear coverage, avoid duplicate geometric squares, support overlapping segments and negative coordinates, and index interval coverage efficiently.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Debug Tensor Conversion BugsMedium

  This question evaluates debugging and implementation-level skills in tensor and array manipulation, focusing on aliasing behavior, conversion between column lists and ndarrays, correct handling of non-divisible chunking, and writing tests for these issues.

  WaymoMachine Learning EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Debug an Angular UI from User ReportsMedium

  This problem tests your ability to debug an Angular component, specifically focusing on Change Detection strategies, memory leaks in RxJS subscriptions, and asynchronous state management.

  WaymoFrontend EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
• Decide If a Vehicle Is Ready to Go from Open/End Maintenance EventsMedium

  Given a vehicle maintenance log of open and end events with timestamps and maintenance types such as oil or brake, decide whether the vehicle is ready to go. The problem tests chronological event processing with a stable tie rule, per-type state tracking, and detecting unmatched ends, overlapping opens, and tasks left open.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Deduplicate a 256 GB File on a Machine With 128 MB of MemoryMedium

  Remove duplicate records from a single 256 GB file on a machine with only 128 MB of memory. Tests external-memory techniques such as hash partitioning and external merge sort, skew handling, I/O cost, open-file limits, and preserving the original order.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
• Describe a Complex Project You Worked On and Why It Was ChallengingMedium

  Behavioral hiring-manager question: describe a complex project you worked on and explain why it was challenging, often after a resume walk-through. Tests choosing a project that fits the level, naming the real difficulty, personal ownership and outcomes.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerBehavioral & LeadershipOnsite
• Describe a Project You Are Proud OfMedium

  This question tests your ability to articulate a technical contribution, demonstrate engineering judgment, and communicate impact within a high-stakes team environment.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerBehavioral & LeadershipOnsite
• Design Large-Scale Inference ServingMedium

  This question evaluates understanding of large-scale ML inference systems, assessing competencies in capacity planning, latency and tail-latency engineering, memory and bandwidth estimation, hardware selection (CPUs/GPUs/specialized accelerators), batching and caching trade-offs, and reliability concerns such as out-of-memory prevention and recovery. It is commonly asked to test practical system-design skills for production deployment by requiring back-of-the-envelope QPS and resource estimates and reasoning about operational trade-offs; this belongs to the ML system design category and emphasizes practical application over purely conceptual theory.

  WaymoMachine Learning EngineerML System DesignTechnical Screen
• Design Reliable Command Delivery Between Autonomous Vehicles and the CloudMedium

  Design a resilient, secure command dispatch and execution system between a cloud fleet management platform and autonomous vehicles operating over unreliable cellular networks.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a Fleet That Collects Mapping DataHard

  Design fleet mapping-data collection with coverage goals, task assignment, offline buffering, resumable uploads, provenance, quality validation, and re-collection workflows.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a Global Small-Image Caching ServiceMedium

  This problem tests the ability to design a highly available, globally distributed caching layer that handles high-throughput small-image delivery while maintaining data consistency and resilience against origin failures.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a Hybrid Evaluation PlatformMedium

  This problem tests your ability to design a multi-modal evaluation infrastructure that balances automated LLM-based grading with human-in-the-loop (HITL) verification to ensure high-fidelity ML model performance metrics.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerML System DesignOnsite
• Design a Matchmaking Service With Join, Cancel, Matching, Notification and ExpiryMedium

  Design a matchmaking service that lets players join and cancel requests, pairs compatible players, notifies both, and handles disconnects and expired requests. Tests request state machines, atomic matching, partitioned waiting pools and reliable notification.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a Real-Time Player Matchmaking ServiceMedium

  This problem tests the ability to design a distributed, low-latency matchmaking system capable of handling concurrent requests, state consistency, and efficient participant matching.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen