Waymo's median filed base salary is $205,000. That is the midpoint of 506 certified labor condition applications filed by Waymo LLC and decided between October 2, 2024 and June 30, 2026, as of the FY2026 Q3 disclosure file. Every single one of those 506 filings states one exact salary, which makes this the most reliable number on the site.
Key takeaways
- 506 certified H-1B filings, median filed base $205,000, p25 to p75 of $193,250 to $240,000 (Visionary Talks analysis of DOL LCA disclosure data, FY2026 Q3).
- Waymo files a single exact wage on 100% of filings and anchors at the legal prevailing wage on 0.0% of them. No other company in the database is clean on both measures.
- Pay is flat, not rising. The median moved from $204,000 in FY2025 to $205,000 in FY2026, a change of 0.5%.
- Software Engineer accounts for 218 of 506 filings at a $205,000 median, the same as the company-wide figure.
- Unlike DeepMind, Waymo sponsors under its own name. Both are Alphabet businesses; only one appears in the federal record.
This article is based on primary sources: the US Department of Labor Office of Foreign Labor Certification LCA disclosure files for FY2025 Q1 through Q4 and FY2026 Q3, which we processed in full. Every salary figure below is computed from those workbooks. Full source list at the bottom.
Why This Page Is More Trustworthy Than The Others
Most of the AI Salary Database comes with a caveat. Companies that file salary ranges frequently set the bottom at the prevailing wage, a federal minimum that has nothing to do with the offer, which means their reported median is partly a legal floor. Anthropic does this on 46.7% of filings, Perplexity on 88.5%.
Waymo does neither. It files one exact number on all 506 filings, and not one of them is set at the prevailing wage. There is no band to interpret and no floor contaminating the median.
So $205,000 is what it looks like: the midpoint of what Waymo told the federal government it would pay 506 sponsored employees. Against the pooled median of $200,000 across all 11 tracked companies, Waymo sits $5,000 above, which places it seventh of eleven on base pay while producing the third-largest filing volume.
Roles And What Each One Filed
| Job title | Filings | Median base | Range within title |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer | 218 | $205,000 | $160,000 to $302,000 |
| Machine Learning Engineer | 12 | $240,000 | $200,000 to $295,000 |
| Data Scientist | 11 | $205,000 | $200,000 to $280,000 |
| Research Scientist | 11 | $235,000 | $165,000 to $255,000 |
| Product Manager | 8 | $242,500 | $207,000 to $330,000 |
| Systems Test Engineer | 8 | $191,000 | $182,000 to $230,000 |
| Researcher | 6 | $212,000 | $185,000 to $280,000 |
| Product Data Scientist | 5 | $220,000 | $185,000 to $230,000 |
| Technical Program Manager | 5 | $230,000 | $187,000 to $265,000 |
| Systems Engineer | 4 | $229,000 | $220,000 to $235,000 |
The distribution is unusually tight. The middle half of all Waymo filings spans $193,250 to $240,000, a range of $46,750. The equivalent spread at OpenAI is $95,000 and at xAI $130,000.
That tightness is what a mature engineering organisation looks like on paper. Waymo is not bidding for a handful of scarce researchers at whatever price clears. It is hiring hundreds of software engineers into a defined band, and the band barely moves: Product Manager at $242,500 is the top-paying title in the company and it sits only $37,500 above the median.
One filing, a Software Engineer, Router role decided in FY2025, carries a base of $2,000,000. Waymo's next highest filing is $394,000. We report it and do not believe it, and it is excluded from the ranges in the table above.
Flat Pay, Growing Headcount
Waymo's median filed base was $204,000 in FY2025 across 229 filings and $205,000 in FY2026 across 277. That is a rise of 0.5%, or in practical terms, nothing.
The comparison is sound: Waymo's filing style was identical in both years, so this is a genuine like-for-like reading. While OpenAI's median fell 8.8%, xAI's fell 20.0% and Scale AI's rose 17.0%, Waymo paid the same and hired 21% more people.
That is a specific kind of company. Waymo is not competing in the frontier-lab talent auction, where a single researcher can move a median. It is staffing an operating business, and it is doing so at a price it has already settled on.
The Alphabet Comparison Nobody Makes
Waymo and DeepMind are both Alphabet businesses. Only one of them exists in this data.
Waymo LLC filed 506 certified applications under its own legal name. DeepMind filed zero under any of its names, and its US staff appear inside Google LLC's filings, seventeen of them marked only by a GDM title prefix. We covered that in full on the DeepMind salary page.
The difference is not cosmetic. It tells you which Alphabet subsidiaries are structured as genuine US employing entities and which are not. Waymo hires you; with DeepMind, Google LLC hires you.
It also means Waymo's pay is visible and DeepMind's is not, which is why every DeepMind salary figure circulating online is either a survey number or a Google number wearing a DeepMind label.
FAQ
What is the average salary at Waymo?
The median filed base is $205,000 across 506 certified filings decided between October 2024 and June 2026, with the middle half between $193,250 and $240,000. Individual filings run from $118,019 to $394,000, excluding one $2,000,000 filing we treat as an employer entry error. Base only, no equity.
What does a software engineer earn at Waymo?
The 218 filings with the plain title Software Engineer have a median filed base of $205,000, ranging from $160,000 to $302,000, as of the FY2026 Q3 file. Machine Learning Engineer sits higher at a $240,000 median across 12 filings.
Does Waymo pay more than Google?
On these filings, slightly less for research roles. Google LLC's median filed base for AI research titles is $210,000 against Waymo's $205,000 company-wide figure, though the two are measuring different job mixes.
Is this total compensation?
No. Labor condition applications disclose base wage only. Alphabet equity, which for Waymo staff is a material part of the package, is not in this data.
Sources
1. LCA Disclosure Data, FY2026 Q3, US Department of Labor OFLC: dol.gov performance data. Decisions from October 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026.
2. LCA Disclosure Data, FY2025 Q1 to Q4, US Department of Labor OFLC: dol.gov performance data. Decisions from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025.
3. LCA Record Layout, FY2026 Q3, US Department of Labor OFLC: dol.gov performance data. Defines WAGE_RATE_OF_PAY_FROM, WAGE_RATE_OF_PAY_TO and PREVAILING_WAGE, the fields used to establish that Waymo files no ranges.