Principle Engineer, 3D Reconstruction

Wayve; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Relocation support

Hybrid working

Learning budget

Health insurance

Pension

Job summary

Wayve is seeking a principal-level technical leader to architect and drive the offline 3D reconstruction system, turning sensor data into reliable 3D geometry and ego-motion estimates. You’ll set standards, mentor engineers, and partner with calibration, sensor fusion, and validation teams across multiple platforms.

The role requires deep expertise in SLAM, lidar-based reconstruction, and robust production experience, with strong C++/Python and cross-functional leadership.

Qualifications

• Deep technical expertise in SLAM, 3D reconstruction, mapping, state estimation, or closely related robotics/perception fields.

Responsibilities

• Define the technical architecture and roadmap for Wayve’s offline 3D reconstruction system.

Skills

SLAM

3D reconstruction

Mapping

State estimation

Lidar-based reconstruction

Pose estimation

Offline reconstruction

C++

Python

ROS

OpenCV

CUDA

Education

MS/PhD in Robotics, CS, State Estimation, or related

Tools

ROS

PCL

OpenCV

CUDA

Job description

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 Robotics Team

The Robotics team is responsible for bridging the gap from our model to our vehicle platforms, in order to let the model focus on making driving decisions. We aim to provide high quality data to the model for making such decisions, whilst abstracting away platform-specific aspects.

Your day-to-day

• Define the technical architecture and roadmap for Wayve’s offline 3D reconstruction system.
• Lead the development of MVPs that unblock high-priority internal use cases, while guiding the transition to a robust internal platform.
• Establish the core technical interfaces, output representations, and tools needed to support internal customers.
• Partner with calibration, sensor fusion, perception, data, infrastructure, and validation teams to align requirements, resources and ownership boundaries.
• Set technical standards for reconstruction quality, failure analysis, uncertainty measurement, and dataset suitability and execute strategies to validate them
• Mentor and provide technical leadership to engineers contributing to the 3D reconstruction effort.
• Communicate technical tradeoffs, limitations, and progress clearly to engineering leaders and cross-functional stakeholders.

What You’ll Be Working On

Leading the development of an offline 3D reconstruction capability that builds high-quality 3D world geometry from vehicle sensor data in dynamic scenes. The system will draw on localization and mapping, state estimation, and sensor fusion to produce offline 3D geometric reconstructions and best-estimate ego motion from heterogeneous vehicle platforms and sensor suites. The work will support internal validation, data enrichment, and model development by turning raw sensor data into reliable, quality-assessed 3D ground-truth outputs. This is a principal-level technical leadership role for someone who can set the technical direction, build early prototypes, and align cross-functional teams around a shared reconstruction capability.

Required Skills/Experience

You should apply if you have:

• Deep technical expertise in SLAM, 3D reconstruction, mapping, state estimation, or closely related robotics/perception fields.
• Strong hands-on experience with lidar-based reconstruction, point-cloud registration, pose estimation, and real-world robotics sensor data.
• Experience building offline reconstruction, mapping, or perception systems that operate on large volumes of sensor data.
• Strong software engineering skills in C++, Python, or similar robotics/perception environments.
• Experience taking research or prototype algorithms into reliable production systems.
• Comfortable defining technical strategy, roadmaps, and milestones in ambiguous problem spaces
• Strong cross-functional technical leadership in ambiguous, multi-team environments.
• Clear communication of algorithmic tradeoffs, limitations, confidence, and failure modes to technical and cross functional stakeholders.
• Systems-level understanding of sensor calibration, timing, synchronization and quality issues, and ability to define requirements and work with specialist teams to achieve them

Desired Skills/Experience

• MS/PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, State Estimation, Sensor Fusion, SLAM, 3D Reconstruction, or a related technical field; or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience with autonomous vehicles, robotics, mapping, or ground-truth data pipelines in a production setting.
• Experience with GNSS/INS fusion, sensor based odometry, or other high-accuracy position estimation approaches
• Experience with nonlinear optimization techniques such as pose graph optimization, factor graphs, bundle adjustment, ICP etc
• Experience apply modern machine learning approaches to 3D reconstruction, mapping, or scene understanding, including foundation models or learned 3D representations
• Familiarity with robotics tooling such as ROS, PCL, OpenCV, CUDA, or similar.
• Familiarity with ML data enrichment, autolabelling, annotation workflows, or validation-data generation.
• Experience designing quality metrics, validation evidence, or credibility arguments for reconstructed data.
• Experience leading small expert technical teams from early-stage concept to production use.

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

• Initial call / recruiter screen: general background, current situation, interests and Wayve company information & hiring context.
• Competency Interviews: programming and code review.
• Deep-dive technical interviews: domain knowledge & system design.
• 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.