Engineering Manager, Runtime Platform, Robot Software

EngineersOfAI; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Wayve is building embodied AI that can drive any vehicle, anywhere. As Engineering Manager for Runtime Platform, you'll lead a single team and be accountable for its delivery, engagement, resourcing, roadmap, and performance.

People leadership is your first priority: coach the team, own hiring, and maintain high morale. You’ll set technical direction on latency, profiling, real-time scheduling, and the IPC/middleware stack, and own the outcomes of the team’s technical decisions.

Qualifications

• Proven engineering management experience with high-performing software teams.
• Ability to own a team's roadmap and ship through others with accountability.
• Strong technical credibility in system design, latency, and performance.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the team, coach, and manage performance.
• Own hiring and onboarding to build the right team.
• Drive execution aligned with company goals and roadmap.
• Set clear technical direction and ownership of roadmap milestones.
• Oversee runtime foundations including frameworks, IPC, and performance.
• Collaborate with Vehicle Software teams, hardware, and OEM programs.

Skills

Engineering management

People management

Roadmap planning

Team leadership

Technical judgement

Tools

CI/CD

Middleware IPC

Performance monitoring

Job description

About us

Founded in 2017, Wayve is the leading developer of Embodied AI technology. Our advanced AI software and foundation models enable vehicles to perceive, understand, and navigate any complex environment, enhancing the usability and safety of automated driving systems.

Our vision is to create autonomy that propels the world forward. Our intelligent, mapless, and hardware-agnostic AI products are designed for automakers, accelerating the transition from assisted to automated driving.

In our fast-paced environment big problems ignite us—we embrace uncertainty, leaning into complex challenges to unlock groundbreaking solutions. We aim high and stay humble in our pursuit of excellence, constantly learning and evolving as we pave the way for a smarter, safer future.

At Wayve, your contributions matter. We value diversity, embrace new perspectives, and foster an inclusive work environment; we back each other to deliver impact.

Make Wayve the experience that defines your career!

About The Team

Wayve is building embodied AI that can drive any vehicle, anywhere. Our AI Driver runs on-vehicle in real time, and the Runtime Platform team owns the application frameworks, middleware (IPC / inter-process communication), monitoring, performance, and observability foundations that make that possible. This is a growing sub-team that we're breaking out into its own team, and you’ll be the Engineering Manager to lead it.

The role

As Engineering Manager for Runtime Platform, you'll lead a single team and be accountable for its delivery, engagement, resourcing, roadmap, and performance. People leadership is your first priority: you'll coach and grow the team, keep it engaged and high-performing, and own hiring as the team stands up. You'll pair that with strong technical judgment — setting clear technical direction on latency, profiling, real-time scheduling, and middleware, and owning the outcome of the team's technical decisions.

What you'll do

• Lead and grow the team (first priority): keep the team engaged, developing, and performing with good morale; run 1:1s, set clear expectations, give regular high-quality feedback, manage performance, and support career growth against our career framework.
• Hire and build the team: own hiring and onboarding to get the right people in the right roles, and shape the team's culture and ways of working as it forms.
• Drive execution: ensure the team's work advances company goals; staff committed programs, keep the roadmap aligned to available resources, prioritize, and hold the team accountable for delivery, quality, and operational reliability.
• Set technical direction: ensure the team has a clear, holistic technical direction and clear ownership of its technology-roadmap milestones — working closely with the team's tech lead(s) and stakeholders; own the outcome of the team's technical decisions.
• Own the runtime foundations: guide the team's work across system design, application frameworks, the middleware/IPC layer, performance & optimization, and measurement & observability. Enable new vehicle platform enablement with incremental work and minimal performance degradation. Implement and maintain strong CI, HIL, and internal quality gates to provide a robust framework for fast iteration.
• Collaborate and unblock: cascade the roadmap, partner with internal Vehicle Software teams, model developers, hardware, and OEM programs. Act as the point of escalation for your team, and proactively surface and resolve risks and dependencies.

What you'll bring

• Engineering management experience (essential): a track record of leading, growing, engaging, and retaining a high-performing software/systems team — including hiring, coaching, feedback, and performance management. People management is your first priority.
• Delivery through a team: experience owning a team's roadmap and shipping through others — planning, prioritization, resourcing, and accountability for quality and operational reliability.
• Technical credibility: hand