Waymo Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

I went through three interviews in the 2nd and 3rd week of May. I didn't get an offer, but it was a really positive experience and a great way to learn, especially for someone without a CS background trying to get into autonomous driving. Ms. Song, a Senior Recruiter at Waymo, was my main contact. The first interview was a casual project discussion with a senior software engineer who talked about the new Multi-System group, the role, responsibilities, and learning opportunities for this internship, and then we discussed my Ph.D. project. I can't share more due to NDA. The second interview focused on C++ coding and algorithms, involving a code-along exercise with graphs and a suitable traversal technique. The problem was similar to Leetcode but needed some thought. The third interview was a general domain knowledge test that surprisingly included two more C++ coding exercises. The interviewer had a Ph.D. in Geometric computer vision. I think I messed up here, partly because I wasn't expecting C++ vector products and a nearest neighbor problem. Again, NDA prevents details. Importantly, none of the three C++ coding tasks required the code to actually compile and run; the assessment seemed to be more about my C++ skills, algorithms, and ability to think quickly under pressure. Both interviewers wanted simple function interfaces and basic data structures, but I overused modern C++ features like smart pointers, vectors, and classes.

A Waymo recruiter contacted me via email, inquiring about my past projects and interests. They then shared job openings. Following this, there was a coding round involving a difficult 2D matrix recursion problem to print cell weights, for which the interviewer provided helpful hints. Subsequently, I proceeded to virtual onsite rounds: one coding, two behavioral, one machine learning, and one system design. The coding round featured a BFS question. However, one interview was poorly organized; the interviewer seemed unprepared and asked random technical questions for about 30 minutes, which negatively impacted my performance. I informed the recruiter about this issue, and they offered to reschedule. Despite this setback, I received a rejection email a few days later, which was disappointing given my positive interactions and interest in the team.

I managed to get through all the technical parts of the interview process. It started with a technical screen call which was a great experience and I felt I performed well. Then there were three more calls: one for coding, one behavioral, and a home assessment. I felt like I did really well on these, answering all the questions and receiving positive feedback after the initial technical screen. However, I didn't make it past the second round. The HR team couldn't provide specific feedback, which felt a bit unfair given I'd invested about 1.5 months in the interviews and thought they went well. I was left confused and still don't understand what went wrong. Overall, interviewing with Waymo was a great experience and I plan to reapply in the future.