Controls Engineer

Wayve; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Wayve is seeking a highly capable expert to develop and refine vehicle trajectory and motion controllers that translate AI Driver outputs into safe, smooth vehicle motion across ADAS and AV platforms. You will implement real-time C++ control software, run extensive simulations, and test in diverse driving scenarios to advance autonomous driving tech.

The role emphasizes combining principled control approaches with production-grade software, real-time performance, and collaboration across Wayve

Qualifications

• Strong fundamentals in control theory and at least one of optimization, MPC, numerical methods or dynamical systems.
• Practical experience building and validating control or motion systems on real-world hardware.
• Strong software engineering skills with production-ready C++ implementations.
• Experience with latency-sensitive or real-time software.
• Ability to reason about and debug complex robotic systems across software and hardware.

Responsibilities

• Develop, integrate, tune, and validate control and trajectory-generation algorithms across vehicle platforms and conditions.
• Maintain and evolve controls software architecture connecting AI outputs to real-time actuation and feedback.
• Implement production-quality, latency-sensitive control software in C++ for prototypes and production vehicles.
• Use simulation, closed-loop evaluation and on-road testing to characterize controller behaviour and diagnose issues.
• Collaborate with Wayve teams to define interfaces and integrate with adjacent systems for new platforms and features.

Skills

Control theory

Optimization

Model predictive control

Numerical methods

Dynamical systems

Production-quality C++

Real-time software

System debugging

Job description

The Role

In this role you will develop and improve the vehicle trajectory and motion controllers that translate the Wayve AI Driver outputs into safe, smooth and robust vehicle motion across different vehicle platforms and applications (both ADAS and AV). You’ll tackle cutting-edge challenges: developing principled controls approaches, implementing real time systems, testing in complex scenarios and refining our evaluation pipelines. This is a great chance to make an impact on the AV industry and grow alongside a focused team of passionate experts at the forefront of autonomous driving technology.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop, integrate, tune, and validate control, trajectory-generation, and action-processing algorithms across different vehicle platforms, operating modes, and challenging driving conditions, ensuring robust real world performance
• Maintain and evolve our controls software architecture that connects AI Driver outputs to real-time vehicle actuation and feedback
• Implement and maintain production-quality, latency-sensitive control software in C++ for deployment to prototype, reference and production vehicles
• Use simulation, closed-loop evaluation and on-road testing to characterize controller behaviour, diagnose performance issues and validate improvements
• Work with teams across Wayve to define controller interfaces, integrate with adjacent systems and enable new vehicle platforms and product features

Required Skills/Experience

• Strong fundamentals in control theory, with depth in one or more of optimization, model-predictive control, numerical methods or dynamical systems
• Practical experience developing, tuning and validating control or motion systems on real world physical systems
• Strong software engineering skills, with experience building reliable production-quality systems in C++
• Experience with latency-sensitive or real-time software
• Ability to reason about and debug system-level behaviour in complex robotic systems across software and hardware

Desired Skills/Experience

• Applied experience with model predictive control, trajectory optimization, motion planning etc.
• Direct experience with mobile robotics or autonomous vehicle systems
• Experience in the automotive industry, including ADAS or vehicle controls
• Experience with safety-critical systems, validation, and relevant industry standards (e.g. ISO 26262)
• Applied machine learning experience, or experience developing systems that integrate with ML components

This is a full-time role based in our office in London, England. At Wayve we want the best of all worlds so we operate a hybrid working policy that combines time together in our offices and workshops to fuel innovation, culture, relationships and learning, and time spent working from home.