Waymo interview questions

Showing 31–60 of 90 results

• Design a Ride SchedulerMedium

  This problem tests your ability to design a robust scheduling system that handles dynamic task insertion, state transitions, and time-based prioritization using object-oriented principles.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
• Design a Shared-Ride Matching and Trip ServiceMedium

  This problem tests the ability to architect a low-latency geospatial matching system that handles concurrency, real-time vehicle tracking, and the complex state management required for shared-ride optimization.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a System for a Vehicle Fleet Collecting Map Data for Autonomous DrivingMedium

  A system design interview question asking you to design the system that runs a vehicle fleet collecting sensor data for autonomous driving maps. It tests coverage and mission planning, offloading very large sensor logs, reliable ingestion, data quality checks, privacy, and storage at petabyte scale.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design an Object Storage Service With Buckets, Keys and Durable Blob StorageMedium

  Design an object storage service where clients store, read, list and delete blobs by key inside buckets. Covers the API, separating metadata from data nodes, replication versus erasure coding, visibility on write, prefix listing, repair and garbage collection.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design an Online ExperimentMedium

  This question tests the ability to design a statistically sound A/B test for a machine learning model update in a real-world, dynamic environment, focusing on metric selection and mitigation of interference.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerMachine LearningOnsite
• Design and Implement a Cross-System Object TrackerMedium

  This problem tests your ability to design an efficient data structure for maintaining and merging temporal events associated with multiple system-generated IDs for the same physical object.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen
• Design the Frontend for an AI Chat ApplicationMedium

  This question tests the ability to design a performant and resilient frontend architecture for a real-time, state-heavy AI chat interface capable of handling large message trees and network instability.

  WaymoFrontend EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design the Frontend of an AI Chat Application With Streaming RepliesMedium

  Frontend-focused system design for an AI chat application. It covers component structure, conversation and message state, streaming replies, stop and retry, safe rendering of model output, performance on long conversations, accessibility and the backend API contract.

  WaymoFrontend EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Determine Complete Interval CoverageMedium

  This question evaluates understanding of interval coverage, streaming or online algorithms, and data structures for maintaining dynamic unions of intervals as points arrive.

  WaymoSite Reliability EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Determine earliest collision among moving carsEasy

  This question evaluates proficiency in kinematics, computational geometry, numerical root-finding, and scalable algorithm design for collision detection among moving objects, including attention to numerical precision and overlapping trajectories.

  WaymoData ScientistCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Does a Seven-Segment LED Digit Display Read the Same Rotated 180 Degrees?Medium

  Decide whether a row of digits on a seven-segment LED display reads the same after the whole display is rotated by 180 degrees. Tests modeling each digit as lit segments, mapping segments under rotation, and comparing the reversed display.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Drive a Car to an Unseen Destination Using Only Local Directions Without CirclingMedium

  A car must reach an unseen destination while only learning which directions are open at each step. Implement the search that finds it without driving in circles, testing depth-first exploration, visited tracking, physical backtracking, and cost in moves.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
• End-Picking Number Game: Can the First Player Win Under Optimal Play?Medium

  Two players alternately take a number from either end of a row and add it to their score; decide whether the first player can finish with at least as many points as the second under optimal play. Tests minimax reasoning and memoized game-state search.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Estimate Event Rates from Unequal-Probability SamplesMedium

  Establish event rates from unequal sampling with inverse-probability weighting, exposure-aware denominators, and efficient stratified allocation.

  WaymoData ScientistStatistics & MathTechnical Screen
• Estimate total attendance from size-biased reservation sampleEasy

  This question evaluates understanding of size-biased sampling, selection bias correction, finite-population total estimation, and uncertainty quantification in survey sampling.

  WaymoData ScientistStatistics & MathTechnical Screen
• Evaluate Smart Wait Launch ImpactMedium

  This question evaluates a data scientist's competencies in causal inference and experiment analysis, including interpreting A/B test outcomes, trade-offs between conversion and operational metrics, selection of primary and guardrail metrics, and generation of alternative hypotheses.

  WaymoData ScientistAnalytics & ExperimentationOnline Assessment
• Evaluate a New Version in Simulation and Explain a Flat Live ResultMedium

  Compare model versions on paired simulation scenarios and diagnose why offline improvements may disappear in live rare-event evaluation.

  WaymoData ScientistAnalytics & ExperimentationTechnical Screen
• Expand Nested Repetition ExpressionsMedium

  This problem tests your ability to parse nested patterns and handle recursion or stack-based state management to expand strings defined by repetition rules.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Filter Matching Subtrees from an N-Ary TreeMedium

  This problem tests tree traversal techniques, string matching, and the ability to handle iterative tree processing to avoid stack overflow in deep structures.

  WaymoFrontend EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Filter an N-ary Tree by Substring and Render It With Indentation in a UIMedium

  Filter an n-ary tree by removing every node whose value contains a substring, along with its subtree, then build a UI that renders the filtered tree with depth-based indentation as the user types. Tests recursion, immutability, state design and rendering.

  WaymoFrontend EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
• Find Dictionary Words Represented by Repeated LettersHard

  Match dictionary words to a repeated-letter string using ordered run characters and count inequalities, with explicit stretch, duplicate, and empty-string semantics.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Find Every Island in a Grid and Measure Its Boundary with WaterMedium

  A grid coding problem that asks you to find every island of land cells and report the length of each island's boundary with water, including enclosed lakes and grid edges. It tests grid traversal, connected components, careful edge counting, and deterministic output ordering.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Find Shortest Knight PathMedium

  This problem tests the ability to model a constrained movement pattern on a 2D grid as an unweighted graph and efficiently find the shortest path using Breadth-First Search (BFS).

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Find Shortest Paths to Target NodesMedium

  This question evaluates knowledge of graph algorithms and algorithmic problem-solving, specifically computing shortest paths in weighted directed graphs and handling unreachable targets.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Find a Repeating Vehicle Program Under Fuel and Memory LimitsHard

  Find any repeating vehicle program of at most ten commands with fuel and obstacles, using complete bounded search, terminating simulation, and explicit execution assumptions.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Find the Best Meeting Point on a GridMedium

  This problem tests your ability to use multi-source Breadth-First Search (BFS) to find a point that minimizes total travel distance across a grid with obstacles.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Fixed-Capacity Least-Recently-Used Cache Driven by Get and Put OperationsMedium

  Design a fixed-capacity least-recently-used cache as an object-oriented exercise, driven here by a list of get and put operations whose read results you return. Tests O(1) lookup, recency updates on reads and writes, and correct eviction order.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Format Bytes as a Hex and ASCII DumpMedium

  This problem tests string manipulation, modular arithmetic, and careful handling of formatting constraints to produce a standardized hexadecimal memory dump.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Generate Instructions for a Blind Maze RobotHard

  This question evaluates a candidate's ability to design algorithmic strategies for state-space synchronization, graph traversal, and reasoning under partial observability in grid environments.

  WaymoMachine Learning EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Handle Competing Work PrioritiesMedium

  This question evaluates your ability to evaluate trade-offs between conflicting engineering tasks, manage stakeholder expectations when commitments change, and adapt plans when new data emerges.

  WaymoSoftware EngineerBehavioral & LeadershipOnsite