Staff Software Engineer, Storage Platform

Wayve; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Wayve is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for Storage Platform in London. You’ll set the technical direction for petabyte-scale data storage, collaborating with Infrastructure, Security, Privacy, Data Engineering and ML teams to reduce infra costs and improve training efficiency.

You’ll lead end-to-end storage programs, build production services with Python/Go, and work across regions and clouds to ensure secure, scalable data access while mentoring engineers as the platform grows.

Qualifications

• Hands-on staff-level engineer with experience leading infrastructure programs across multiple teams.
• Experience owning petabyte-scale object storage end-to-end including data lifecycle and cost management.
• Strong security and access-management expertise (IAM/RBAC, encryption, auditing).
• Proficient in Python and Go; skilled with Kubernetes, Terraform, and CI/CD pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead a multi-quarter storage programme from problem definition to adoption.
• Build production services and platform components using Python/Go, Kubernetes and Terraform.
• Improve data access patterns, reduce storage bottlenecks and optimize GPU data throughput.
• Strengthen data security, access controls, auditing and safe deletion of vehicle-collected data.
• Write design docs, align teams around standards, and mentor engineers as the platform grows.
• Collaborate with ML and data teams to drive measurable platform outcomes.

Skills

Python

Go

Kubernetes

Terraform

Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP)

Security & IAM

Mentoring/leadership

Tools

CI/CD

Terraform

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.

About our AI Platform Teams

Our AI Platform teams build the infrastructure that powers Wayve's embodied AI. We store and serve hundreds of petabytes of driving data, growing towards exabyte scale, to support model training, simulation and data pipelines across regions and clouds.

As our first dedicated Staff Software Engineer for Storage Platform, you'll set the technical direction for how we manage, protect and serve this data. Working closely with Infrastructure, Security, Privacy, Data Engineering and ML teams, you'll help make training more efficient while reducing one of Wayve's largest infrastructure costs.

Your day-to-day

• Lead a hands-on, multi-quarter storage programme, from defining the problems and architecture to delivering platforms that teams adopt.
• Build production services, controllers and infrastructure using Python, Go or a similar language, alongside Kubernetes and Terraform.
• Partner with ML and data teams to understand access patterns, remove storage bottlenecks and reduce the time GPUs spend waiting for data.
• Work with Security and Privacy to strengthen access controls, auditing and safe deletion of vehicle-collected data.
• Write design documents and RFCs, align teams around shared standards, and mentor engineers as the platform and team grow.

What you'll be working on

• Data ownership and governance: Give datasets clear owners, purposes and retention classes, with tagging and team-level cost attribution.
• Safe lifecycle management: Build retention, deletion and re-tiering capabilities for Azure Blob, backed by dry runs, audit trails and recovery paths.
• Read performance and caching: Improve throughput and latency by tackling small-object reads, throttling, unnecessary data access and cross-region hops.
• Secure data movement: Design Kubernetes-native NVMe caching and secure replication across regions and clouds.
• Measurable platform outcomes: Establish standards, dashboards and SLOs for availability, performance, cache effectiveness, storage tiers and cost.

You should apply if

• You've operated at Staff Engineer scope, leading complex infrastructure programmes across multiple teams from problem definition through adoption.
• You've owned petabyte-scale object storage end to end-including data layout, lifecycle management, performance and cost-with measurable outcomes against a cost target.
• You've built scalable systems for data ownership, tagging, cataloguing, retention or deletion.
• You bring strong security and access-management experience, including IAM/RBAC, encryption, secure replication and auditing.
• You're a hands-on software engineer with strong Python, Go or comparable skills, plus production Kubernetes, Terraform and CI experience. You build durable platforms and services, not just one-off scripts.
• You can influence technical decisions without formal authority, mentor others and are excited to start in a founding, hands-on role with the opportunity to grow a team.
• You can work on a hybrid basis from our London office.
• Experience with AWS or GCP is welcome-you don't need to have worked exclusively with Azure.

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