Head of Technical Talent Acquisition

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 People team recruits and supports the world's best talent (including, we hope, you). Our HR business partners, program administrators, staffers, and compensation specialists help our employees attain their full potential in a healthy, considerate and supportive environment.

We are seeking a seasoned, strategic, and data-driven Director of Engineering Recruiting to lead our technical talent acquisition function. Based in our Mountain View headquarters, you will be responsible for scaling our R&D recruiting strategy, mentoring a team of recruiting managers and ICs, and managing the end-to-end recruitment lifecycle. This role requires managing a blended workforce of full-time employees (FTE) and contractors, ensuring high-quality talent density, and fostering a strong partnership with Engineering leadership.

In this hybrid role, would will report to the Head of Talent Acquisition.

You will:

• Strategic Leadership & Scaling: Develop and execute a comprehensive recruitment strategy to scale the engineering organization (Software, Infrastructure, Security, AI/ML) in line with company growth goals.


• Team Management & Mentorship: Lead, mentor, and develop a team of recruiting managers, sourcers, and recruiters. Build leadership depth within the team and foster a high-performance culture.


• Contractor Workforce Management: Oversee the utilization, performance, and budget of contract recruiting firms and contract staff to support high-volume hiring needs.


• Engineering Partnership: Act as a key talent advisor to VPs and Directors of Engineering, providing market insights, compensation benchmarking, and regular updates on hiring health.


• Operational Excellence & Data Analytics: Drive operational efficiency by optimizing ATS workflows, tracking funnel metrics (time-to-hire, quality-of-hire), and implementing AI-driven sourcing tools to enhance productivity.


• Candidate Experience & Employer Branding: Elevate the engineering candidate experience and partner with Marketing to strengthen our employer value proposition (EVP) for technical talent. 

You have:

• Experience: 12+ years in TA, with 7+ years scaling engineering teams in high-growth environments.


• Leadership: Proven experience managing managers, recruiters, and contractors.


• Technical Knowledge: Ability to partner with leadership on AI/ML and infrastructure hiring.


• Location: Based in Mountain View, CA, with ability to work hybrid (3 days onsite).

We prefer:

• Deep experience hiring AI / MLE talent 


• Experience with rapid scale in  a global organization


• Strong understanding of workflows, org design


• Propensity to experiment and drive transformation with a bias to action