Former Waymo Engineer Hired by Apple to Help with Self-Driving Vehicle Ambitions

Although Apple has been working on developing self-driving technology for years, its efforts have largely been considered far behind what its competitors have already achieved. In a recent hire, however, the Cupertino firm managed to snag a senior engineer from Waymo. This is indicative of the iPhone maker’s continued push towards the increasingly crowded driverless market.

One of the first to report on the new hire is The Information, noting how a person familiar with the matter confirmed that former Waymo senior engineer Jaime Waydo will be working for Apple. Waydo is considered a powerful asset and had previously worked at the Jet Propulsion labs at NASA before becoming a part of Waymo.

Her job at the Google self-driving division was overseeing the process of making sure that both hardware and software worked together. This is key to making sure that driverless cars don’t malfunction while on the road. It’s easy to imagine, therefore, how important Waydo’s job was.

At Apple, it isn’t clear what her job is going to be. So far, the company has been its usual secretive self with regards to its self-driving efforts, CNBC reports. The only thing that Apple CEO Tim Cook would say about it is that it’s supposedly "the mother of all AI projects."

As of writing, neither Waymo nor Apple has commented on the news regarding Waydo’s departure from the former and subsequent hiring by the latter. There have also been no specifics revealed with regards to what the prominent engineer would be doing once she does become a part of Apple’s workforce.

For now, the general consensus is that the iPhone maker needs all the help it can get if it wants to remain relevant in the self-driving car industry. Companies like Waymo and Tesla are making huge strides in this arena, and so far, Apple has shown no proof that it is ready to compete.