Automotive Systems Engineer

Sunnyvale, California, USA

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 Product Dependability team helps bring Wayve’s embodied AI into production vehicles, turning our AV2.0 approach into automotive-grade L2+/L3 automated driving and ADAS systems.

Working closely with software engineering, product, hardware, solutions, and architecture teams, we define how our autonomy technology integrates into future OEM vehicle infrastructures. Our stack spans sensor data processing, neural network execution, diagnostics, and robotic functions for vehicle control.

As an Automotive Systems Engineer, you’ll help shape our system design, collaborate directly with customers on integration and development projects, and coach colleagues in automotive-grade, requirements-based development.

🧠 Your day-to-day

• Define clear, actionable system requirements for L2+/L3 automated driving and ADAS products, aligning customer needs, business priorities, and technical constraints.
• Collaborate with product managers, software developers, and hardware teams, maintaining requirements traceability throughout the product lifecycle.
• Work with software teams to define data collection needs, driving scenarios, KPIs, and system behavior specifications.
• Partner with solutions and architecture teams to translate requirements and customer constraints into system architectures.
• Get hands-on with vehicles to test, validate, and troubleshoot system behavior, using real-world observations to identify improvements.
• Engage with OEM customers, represent Wayve’s approach in collaboration planning, and help teams adopt an automotive-grade development mindset.

🧩 What you’ll be working on:

• Automotive-grade system design: Shape the strategy and concepts for integrating Wayve’s autonomy solution into OEM vehicle platforms, spanning sensors, software, and vehicle control.
• Data-driven development: Define the real-world scenarios our systems must handle. Help select and create test scenarios from our data corpus, refining them with cross-functional teams to reflect customer and business needs.
• System and vehicle integration: Support the implementation and integration of solutions into vehicles, ensuring compatibility and reliable functionality.
• Validation and performance: Define system-level test specifications with the hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) team and vehicle-level integration tests. Analyze real-world performance to understand strengths, gaps, and opportunities for improvement.
• Problem resolution: Diagnose system issues, provide first-line support, and collaborate across teams to escalate and resolve complex problems.
• Continuous improvement: Use testing results and user feedback to improve engineering processes and contribute to the ongoing evolution of Wayve’s L2+/L3 and ADAS technologies.

🙌 You should apply if:

• You have 5+ years of experience in systems engineering, automotive development, or a related field.
• You have defined and managed requirements for complex systems, ideally within ADAS or automated driving.
• You’re proficient with requirements management tools such as Jama or DOORS, and systems engineering tools such as MATLAB/Simulink or Enterprise Architect.
• You understand automotive systems, including cameras, radar, software integration, and vehicle dynamics.
• You have hands-on experience validating and troubleshooting systems in real-world conditions.
• You’re a strong problem-solver who can diagnose issues, communicate clearly, and collaborate proactively across teams.
• You bring a forward-thinking approach to introducing disruptive technologies within established automotive development processes.
• You have a bachelor’s or master’s degree in Systems Engineering, Automotive Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.

It would also be great if you bring:

• Familiarity with automotive safety standards, including ISO 26262 and SOTIF.
• Knowledge of AI and machine learning frameworks, alongside data- and test-driven development experience, including KPI generation and tracking.
• Experience developing automotive software using C/C++ and/or Python.
• Experience with system-level validation of AI components, including edge-case scenario testing and robustness assessment.

🌱 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, generalize, 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+ 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 generalizable 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:

This is a full-time role based in Sunnyvale, CA, with a hybrid working model.

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.

🔍 The Interview Process:

Our process is clear and respectful of your time:

• Initial call / recruiter screen (30 minutes)
• Competency interviews: Hiring manager interview (1 hour)
• Deep-dive technical interviews: Systems and domain-specific interviews (3 hours total)
• Final interview: Mission and values alignment (1 hour)

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

💰 What’s in it for you (location dependent):

The reasonably estimated salary range for this role is $209,700–$311,400, plus a competitive equity package. Actual compensation is based on your skills, qualifications, and experience.

• 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.