Specialist, Incident Readiness

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.

The Waymo Safety team works to promote and help to continuously improve the safety of Waymo’s fully autonomous driving technology. Our experts develop safety goals and strategies, and conduct safety engineering analyses to ensure safety is being considered throughout the design and development of our vehicles. The team develops and promotes safety strategies and policies for autonomous vehicles for its work with regulatory authorities, lawmakers, law enforcement and public and non-profit organizations. Our Safety Team also helps advise on compliance with applicable environmental, health, and safety regulations.

In this hybrid role you will report into our Head of Enterprise Resilience.

You will:

• Lead the design, development, execution, and evaluation of incident response exercises across the enterprise and with external operational and public safety partners (e.g., Departments of Emergency Management).

• Define and drive the incident readiness program's long-term exercise roadmap and strategy in alignment with Waymo's Safety Management System (SMS) and Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) methodologies, balancing exercise diversity, cross-functional stakeholder engagement, and operational scalability.

• Lead the end-to-end design, configuration, and execution of technical functional exercises and operational drills driving evaluation of operator proficiency, workflow latency, and feature utilization within proprietary incident management platforms and tools.

• Establish and standardize scalable, measurable, and repeatable documentation and evaluation frameworks across the full exercise lifecycle—from needs assessments and exercise scoping to After Action Reports (AARs) and leadership briefings.

• Develop and oversee the identification, root cause analysis, tracking, assignment, and closure of corrective actions and mitigations resulting from readiness exercises to prevent recurrence and enhance overall safety performance.

• Direct and support an extended workforce (xWF) team of exercise design specialists, ensuring operational excellence, continuous improvement, and aligned delivery on program milestones.

You have:

• 10+ years of experience in designing, executing, and scaling incident readiness, crisis exercise, or business continuity exercise programs with a wide range of teams and within safety-critical or highly regulated private sector operational environments such as Automotive, Maritime, Financial, Utilities, Aviation, or similar sectors.

• Demonstrated subject matter expertise in integrating HSEEP and other industry-standard exercise methodologies into enterprise-wide readiness programs.

• Proven ability to establish operational relationships, communication channels, and joint exercise initiatives with regulatory authorities and public safety agencies (e.g., Departments of Emergency Management).

• Demonstrated technical fluency and hands-on experience designing, configuring, and utilizing complex operational software, dispatch platforms, telematics dashboards, or proprietary incident management tooling before and during live exercises.

• Bachelor’s degree in Emergency Management, Operations, Business, Business Continuity or a related technical/operational field (or equivalent practical experience).

We prefer:

• Experience collaborating with procurement and vendor partners to ensure extended workforce (xWF) teams meet safety policy standards, operational quality, and project milestones.

• Experience designing and facilitating incident response exercises and operational drills for autonomous vehicle (AV) operations, fleet networks, or safety-critical mobility systems.

• Experience integrating technical failure modes, operational tooling resilience, and disaster recovery (DR) protocols into various exercise types.

• Demonstrated experience preparing and delivering executive-level reporting, exercise findings and dashboards, and strategic readiness briefings for leadership and governance bodies.

• Professional certifications such as Master Exercise Practitioner (MEP), Certified Emergency Manager (CEM), Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP), Associate Business Continuity Professional (ABCP) or FEMA ICS/NIMS (ICS 100, 200, 300, 400, 700, 800).

• Demonstrated proficiency leveraging data analytics and AI tools (such as Gemini and Workspace) to accelerate exercise design and execution.

Travel:

• Up to 25% travel (domestic and international)

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 $137,000—$169,000 USD