Director, Application Engineering, US

Before the detail, here's the challenge you'd help us solve.

We build the embodied intelligence that moves real vehicles safely, and the ecosystem a billion machines will run on in the future. Very few people in AI can say this. Every role here, whatever the team, plugs into that.

Here’s what this particular role covers.

🛠️ About our Engineering Teams

Our Application Software Engineering teams bring Wayve’s core AI and autonomous driving technology into production vehicles. Working at the intersection of AI and autonomy, vehicle engineering and our automotive partners, the team turns advances in our core technology into safe, reliable, production-ready driving capabilities across different vehicles, platforms and markets.

As Director of Application Software, US, you will lead and grow the US engineering organisation responsible for this work, building a strong technical bridge between Wayve’s core engineering teams and our OEM customers.

🧠 Your day-to-day

You will lead the engineering organisation responsible for applying Wayve’s AI Driver to customer vehicle programmes, from technical definition through integration, validation, release and production. You will work closely with our AI, autonomy, vehicle, product, safety and validation teams, while partnering directly with senior engineering leaders at our automotive customers.

This is a highly collaborative technical leadership role. You do not need to be the specialist in every part of the technology stack, but you will need the technical judgement to connect AI and autonomy with vehicle systems, make thoughtful engineering trade-offs and create an environment where great engineering teams can succeed.

🧩 What you’ll be working on:

• Lead and grow our US Application Software organisation, developing senior engineers, technical leaders and engineering managers.

• Own how Wayve’s core AI and autonomous driving technology is applied to customer vehicle programmes, from technical definition through integration, validation, release and production.

• Guide the development and delivery of new ADAS and autonomous driving capabilities across machine learning, autonomy, vehicle systems and application software.

• Create a strong technical bridge between Wayve’s core engineering teams and our OEM customers, ensuring vehicle and customer requirements are reflected in engineering priorities.

• Provide technical and architectural leadership across autonomous driving, ML-enabled systems, embedded software, vehicle integration and deployment.

• Partner closely with AI, autonomy, product, safety, validation, release and systems engineering teams to solve complex technical challenges and deliver high-quality customer outcomes.

• Turn learning from individual customer programmes into reusable components, engineering practices and integration approaches that accelerate future deployments.

• Build trusted relationships with senior engineering stakeholders at our automotive partners and represent Wayve in technical discussions, architecture reviews and programme planning.

• Bring insights from customer deployments back into Wayve’s core technology and product teams, helping shape our architecture and global deployment strategy.

🙌 You should apply if:

• You have significant engineering and leadership experience within autonomous driving, ADAS, automotive AI or related vehicle technologies.

• You have a strong understanding of autonomous driving and machine learning, including how ML-enabled driving capabilities are developed, integrated, validated and deployed in vehicles.

• You have taken new driving features, behaviours or capabilities from development towards production, with meaningful technical ownership across the autonomy or ML and vehicle integration lifecycle.

• You have delivered complex software or AI-enabled systems within production automotive programmes and understand vehicle systems, embedded platforms and integration constraints.

• You have built and led multidisciplinary engineering teams and developed senior engineers, technical leaders and engineering managers.

• You bring strong technical judgement across AI, autonomy and vehicle systems, and can make effective architectural and engineering trade-offs across disciplines.

• You can build trusted relationships with OEM customers and senior technical partners while representing engineering priorities clearly and credibly.

• Experience with end-to-end learned driving systems, automotive embedded environments such as C++, Linux, QNX or Adaptive AUTOSAR, or automotive safety and security frameworks such as ISO 26262, ISO/SAE 21434, UN R155/156 or A-SPICE would be valuable, but we do not expect one person to be a specialist across every part of the stack.

🌱 Not ticking every box? That’s totally okay!

If you’re passionate about autonomy and keen to learn, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet every requirement.

More about Wayve:

🚀 Wayve is building the leading AI platform for autonomous driving. We are pioneering an end to end AI approach that enables vehicles to learn directly from real world experience, developing the ability to adapt, generalise and improve at scale. Instead of relying on hand coded rules or pre mapped environments, our AI Driver learns to drive by understanding the world around it. The result is technology that navigates complex urban environments with intelligence, precision and natural flow, unlocking meaningful advances in both safety and efficiency. We believe autonomy represents a once in a generation transformation in how people and goods move, comparable to the shift from horses to cars, and from human driven vehicles to intelligent machines.

Our ambition is to make autonomy universal. Wayve’s mapless and hardware agnostic AI platform integrates with global OEM partners, enabling continuous software evolution and unlocking advanced levels of automation from L2 plus through to L4 as our core AI model scales. In a race increasingly defined by intelligence and real world learning, Wayve is taking a distinct approach, building a generalisable driving intelligence that can power any vehicle, anywhere. By combining embodied AI with scalable deployment, we are creating technology that can be shaped to each OEM brand and driver experience, accelerating the transition to a safer, more intelligent future of mobility.

How we work 💻- Locations & Flexible Working:

Our main hubs are in London, Sunnyvale, Yokohama, Herzliya, Vancouver and Leonberg. We operate a hybrid working model that combines in-person collaboration in our dedicated office spaces with focused time working remotely. This gives our teams the connection and energy of working together, alongside the flexibility to do their best work in a way that fits their lives.

This is a full-time role based in Detroit or Sunnyvale, CA (hybrid).

🔍 The Interview Process:

Our process is clear and respectful of your time:

• Initial call / recruiter screen (30 mins)

• Hiring manager / leadership conversation

• Technical and domain deep-dives covering autonomous driving, AI/ML, vehicle systems and engineering leadership

• Cross-functional and customer leadership interview

• Final interview: mission & values alignment

We’ll always explain the format and work around your availability.

What’s in it for you (Location dependant):

• 💰 Salaries benchmarked against the market annually

• 📈 Meaningful equity, sharing in the ownership and long term success of Wayve

• ✈️ Relocation support and visa sponsorship where applicable

• ✅ Hybrid working, core hours and the chance to work hands on in vehicle workshops and labs

• 📚 Learning and development budgets with support for training, conferences and growth

• 🩺 Comprehensive benefits including health insurance, dental, enhanced maternity and paternity leave, retirement or pension where applicable, access to therapists, wellbeing partnerships, team socials and more

A quick, honest note before you apply.

Wayve is not a mature, fully-structured place with the playbook already written. Much of how we work is still being written, and if you join, you’ll help write it. That suits people who want real ownership more than people who need a settled structure from day one.

If that sounds like the kind of problem you want to spend your time on, we’d really like to hear from you.

At Wayve we're committed to creating a diverse, fair and respectful culture that is inclusive of everyone based on their unique skills and perspectives, and regardless of sex, race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, pregnancy or related condition (including breastfeeding) or any other basis as protected by applicable law.

For more information visit Careers at Wayve. To learn more about what drives us, visit Values at Wayve

DISCLAIMER: We will not ask about marriage or pregnancy, care responsibilities or disabilities in any of our job adverts or interviews. However, we do look to capture information about care responsibilities, and disabilities among other diversity information as part of an optional DEI Monitoring form to help us identify areas of improvement in our hiring process and ensure that the process is inclusive and non-discriminatory.