Jobs / United States / Waymo LLC
Silicon Emulation Engineer
Waymo LLC · 🇺🇸 Mountain View, CA, USA; New York, NY, USA
Sponsorship verdict
Sponsorship possible
One solid signal, not two — worth applying, and worth asking about sponsorship early.
- Employer is on a government sponsor recordThe US Department of Labor certified 290 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 87 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
- The posting doesn’t mention sponsorshipSilence isn’t a refusal — ask the recruiter before investing much time.
- No salary bar for this routeH-1B has no fixed salary bar: the employer must pay at least the prevailing wage for the role and area. Cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level. Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/29/2025-23853/weighted-selection-process-for-registrants-and-petitioners-seeking-to-file-cap-subject-h-1b, rules effective 2026-02-27.
- What Waymo LLC paid sponsored hires in similar roles5 certified filings for “Silicon Design Engineer” (Computer Hardware Engineers) in CA: $200k–$212k, median $205k. Most were filed at wage level II (50%) — 2 lottery entries, ≈31% projected selection odds for cap-subject employers. Source: US Department of Labor LCA disclosure data (Oct 2025 – Jun 2026).
- Confirmed live todayWhen a source last listed this job as open.
US H-1B: cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level — Level I gets 1 entry, Level IV gets 4 (DHS projected selection odds ≈15% at Level I to ≈61% at Level IV). Universities and non-profit research employers are cap-exempt. The $100,000 fee for new petitions from abroad is currently blocked by a court order (appeal pending).
A verdict summarises public evidence; it is not legal advice and never a guarantee — the employer and the immigration authority decide. Sign in to factor in where you can already work.
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Sponsor Radar — Waymo LLC
The US Department of Labor certified 290 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 87 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
Past sponsorship or register membership never guarantees sponsorship for this vacancy or for you. Full Sponsor Radar for Waymo LLC →
About the role
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's Compute Team is tasked with a critical and exciting mission: We deliver the compute platform responsible for running the fully autonomous vehicle’s software stack. To achieve our mission, we architect and create high-performance custom silicon; we develop system-level compute architectures that push the boundaries of performance, power, and latency; and we collaborate closely with many other teammates to ensure we design and optimize hardware and software for maximum performance. We are a multidisciplinary team seeking curious and talented teammates to work on one of the world’s highest performance automotive compute platforms. This role follows a hybrid work schedule and you will report to a Silicon Engineering Lead. You will: • Collaborate with the Design, Verification, and Software teams to simulate future silicon designs and software on an emulation platform, targeting functional and performance validation and left-shift of software development • Design, implement, and optimize emulation testbenches, balancing performance and debug capabilities based on user needs and hardware constraints • Write end-to-end synthesizable transactors to interact with emulated designs through software APIs and C-DPI • Triage and root-cause failures alongside emulation users, leveraging waveforms, software logging, and custom-built emulation monitors • Assist with post-silicon bring-up, debug, and characterization • Build infrastructure to support the emulation user base, including tools for model build, regression, automation, continuous integration, data analysis, and training You have: • BS degree in Computer Science / Electrical Engineering or related field and 5 years of silicon development experience. • Experience with at least one major hardware emulation platform (Palladium, Zebu, Veloce, Protium, HAPS). • High level of proficiency with one or more of the following emulation approaches: virtual prototyping, testbench acceleration, hybrid emulation, in-circuit emulation (speed bridge), QEMU, or VirtualBox • Experience with SystemVerilog and design verification methodologies • Programming and scripting (C++, Python, or TCL) for automation, test development, debug flows, and release process. • Strong debug and problem-solving ability across hardware and software We prefer: • Experience with AXI/AMBA, PCIe, DRAM, and Ethernet interfaces • Performance and power analysis techniques • Experience with JTAG, DFT, UART, SPI, GPIO and other test/low-speed interfaces • Knowledge of advanced design verification methods (coverage, gate-level simulation, assertions, and UVM). • Post-silicon debug software (e.g. Trace32, OpenOCD, TARMAC) and lab bench tools (analyzers, scopes, meters) • Understanding of bare metal programming, embedded systems, Linux internals, operating systems, boot loaders, drivers, and firmware The expected base salary range for this full-time position across US locations is listed below. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors, including exact work location, experience, relevant training and educa