Senior Counsel, Employment, UK

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.

As part of Waymo's Legal team, you will work on the exciting legal issues surrounding our transformational autonomous driving technology and help drive our business lines forward from technology ideation through scaled commercial deployment. We partner with our public policy, safety, security and privacy experts to define transportation policy for the autonomous driving world to come, advising on regulatory changes that support and protect our users around the world. We collaborate with our engineering, product, strategy and operations teams to develop and protect our intellectual property portfolio and drive our corporate and commercial transactions. We ensure compliance with an increasingly complex and dynamic range of global regulations. And we anticipate, mitigate, and litigate high-profile and precedent-setting legal matters.

This role follows a hybrid work schedule and reports to our Managing Counsel, Head of Employment Legal and Employee Relations.

In this Senior Counsel, Employment role, you’ll:

Report to the Managing Counsel, Head of Employment Legal and Employee Relations, serving as a dedicated employment counsel responsible for a variety of employment legal matters for Waymo in the UK

Provide senior-level legal support for sensitive internal investigations and compliance with local labor standards

Prevent and resolve employment disputes and proactively respond to regulatory agency claims, audits, and inquiries

Provide employment legal support for HR, Operations and other cross-functional teams in Western Europe as needed, including coordinating and overseeing local outside counsel across various European jurisdictions

At a minimum, we’d like you to have:

Juris Doctor, LL.B., or equivalent law degree with a strong academic record

10+ years of experience practicing employment law representing management at a law firm and/or in-house corporate setting

Qualified to practice law and in good standing in the UK (England and Wales)

Comprehensive expertise in UK and European international employment laws and complex cross-border practices

Experience navigating European labor relations, collective consultation processes, or engagement with works councils

Proven experience advising HR, Operations and other cross-functional teams on managing contingent workforce needs within global operations

Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to manage high-priority initiatives independently under deadline pressure

It’s preferred if you have:

Experience advising fast-growing U.S.-headquartered technology companies with operations across the UK and continental Europe

Direct in-house corporate legal experience or a substantial secondment within a dynamic technology environment

Ability to thrive in complex, ambiguous environments

Travel:

Up to 20%

The expected base salary range for this full-time position 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. 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

£190,000—£200,000 GBP