Staff Software Engineer, Ingestion Systems

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

The Data Ingestion Systems team sits within our Wayve Corpus division. Every day, our teams handle and process multiple petabytes of data from our autonomous vehicle fleet and from partner integrations. We turn raw data from many internal and external sources into structured data that powers our machine learning models and research.

Your day-to-day

As Technical Lead, you'll set the technical direction for our ingestion and processing pipelines and lead their design and implementation. You'll unify disparate data sources, including data from external partners, into a consistent format built for AI training and research. You'll work closely with robotics, ML engineering, research and data governance teams, mentor engineers in your team, and help hire and onboard new ones.

What You'll Be Working On

• Defining and executing a technical roadmap for enhancing and scaling data pipeline capabilities
• Evolving pipeline architecture to support new and changing use cases
• Leading the design and implementation of pipeline features for efficient data ingestion, transformation and distribution
• Normalising and unifying multiple data sources, including external partner data, into a consistent, optimised format for AI training and research
• Building interfaces and systems that reduce bottlenecks and improve reliability and scalability
• Setting best practices for pipeline reliability, including observability, alerting and monitoring
• Leading work to reduce pipeline latency, improve failure recovery and meet SLAs
• Building a culture of transparency, collaboration and shared ownership across teams

You should apply if

• You have 8+ years in software engineering focused on developing and operating scalable, complex data pipelines, including 3+ years leading or architecting data engineering projects
• You have technical leadership experience in pipeline engineering or a related domain
• You have expertise in modern data pipeline architectures, including DAG-based orchestration (e.g. Airflow, Flyte, Ray)
• You have a solid understanding of data engineering practices, distributed processing frameworks and pipeline optimisation techniques
• You communicate and collaborate well with interdisciplinary teams
• You have a track record of mentoring and developing engineers
• You have a Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering or a related technical discipline

Nice To Have

• Experience with robotics or autonomous vehicle sensor data processing pipelines
• Familiarity with third-party dataset ingestion and transformation
• Understanding of compliance and data governance frameworks (e.g. GDPR, TISAX, ASPICE)
• Hands-on experience integrating observability and monitoring solutions

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.

The Interview Process

Our process is clear and respectful of your time:

• Initial call / recruiter screen
• HM Meeting
• Deep-dive technical interviews [programming, systems & domain-specific interviews; 3 hours total]
• 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.