Jobs / United States / Waymo LLC
Sr. Staff Data Architect
Waymo LLC · 🇺🇸 Mountain View, California, 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 roles19 certified filings for “Data Scientist” (Data Scientists) in CA: $197k–$230k, median $205k. Most were filed at wage level III (50%) — 3 lottery entries, ≈46% 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. You will: • Define and drive the global architectural roadmap for Waymo's Data Lake, governing the transition from ad-hoc processing to a production-grade, highly scalable analytical ecosystem. • Serve as the ultimate Tech Lead (TL) over cross-domain data pipelines, governing dependencies and maintaining platform consistency across both centralized infrastructure and embedded product domains. • Champion and enforce linear DAG architectures and modern Lakehouse/Medallion standards to untangle highly coupled, opaque "spaghetti" lineage. • Chair centralized Data Design Review forums, establishing unified standards for modularized code, testing suite enforcement, DAG dependency registration, and environmentalization. • Architect common, self-service frameworks and "Managed Pipeline Services" (like hardened wrappers and templates) for downstream consumption by Data Engineers and Product Data Scientists. • Oversee core integration strategies for Data Governance, ensuring privacy (GDPR), access Control (IAM/RBAC), and pipeline compliance are deeply baked into core architecture. You have: • BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent. • 12+ years of experience leading the design, implementation, and operations of multi-Petabyte Data Lake/Data Warehouse solutions in high-growth companies. • Proven track record of being the Lead Architect driving significant data governance and data platform maturity transitions (e.g., ad-hoc ➔ standardized). • Deep experience driving a data infrastructure org through rapid growing phrase, effectively balancing speed for analysts with central governance guardrails. • Expert-level technical depth in distributed batch/streaming frameworks (e.g., C++, Flume, Apache Spark, Flink). • Highly effective cross-functional influencer; capable of driving alignment across hundreds of Stakeholders (Director+ levels, Embedded Eng, Data Science). We prefer: • Hands-on knowledge of cloud-native or internal release hardening ecosystems (e.g., Canary/CAS, CI/CD pipelines, container orchestration). • High proficiency with Google-internal pipeline/data stacks (Flume, SQLP, Rapid, CAS, F1). 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 education, and skill level. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the role location or, if the role can be performed remote, the specific salary range for your preferred location, during the hiring process. Waymo employees are also eligible to participate in Waymo’s discretionary annual bonus program, equity incentive plan, and generous Company benefits program, subject to eligibility requirements. Salary Range $298,000 — $368,000 USD