Director, Application Engineering - US

Icehouseventures; Sunnyvale (CA); Hybrid; USD 490,000 - 600,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive equity package

Job summary

Wayve is recruiting a Director of Application Software for the US, hybrid in Detroit or Sunnyvale, to lead the engineering org responsible for bringing AI and autonomous driving tech into customer vehicles. This role sits at the intersection of AI, autonomy, vehicle engineering, and automotive partners, shaping deployment across platforms.

You will bridge core engineering with customers, guide ML-enabled system integration, and mentor senior engineers while delivering high-quality customer

Qualifications

• Significant engineering and leadership experience in autonomous driving or automotive AI.
• Strong understanding of ML-enabled driving capabilities and vehicle integration lifecycle.
• Experience delivering software or AI-enabled systems in production automotive programs.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary engineering teams and mentoring engineers.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the US Application Software organisation, fostering collaboration.
• Own application of core AI/ADAS tech to customer vehicle programs from definition to production.
• Guide development of new ADAS and autonomous capabilities across ML, autonomy, and vehicle systems.
• Bridge Wayve's core engineering with OEM customers, aligning requirements.
• Provide technical leadership across autonomous driving, embedded software, and deployment.
• Develop senior engineers and engineering managers within the team.

Skills

Autonomous driving

Leadership

Vehicle systems knowledge

ML-enabled systems

Tools

C++

Linux

Embedded software

QNX

AUTOSAR

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!

The role

Wayve is entering an exciting stage of its journey as we take our AI Driver from breakthrough technology into production vehicles at global scale.

As Director of Application Software, US, you will lead the engineering organisation responsible for bringing Wayve’s core AI and autonomous driving technology into customer vehicles. Sitting at the intersection of our AI and autonomy teams, vehicle engineering, and automotive partners, your team will help turn advances in our core technology into safe, reliable, production-ready driving capabilities.

This is a highly collaborative technical leadership role with the opportunity to shape how Wayve approaches application engineering as we grow. You will build and develop our US organisation, establish strong partnerships with our core engineering teams and customers, and create approaches that allow us to deploy our technology efficiently across different vehicles, platforms, and markets.
We are looking for someone who combines an understanding of autonomous driving and machine learning with strong vehicle systems knowledge. You will not need to be the specialist in every part of the technology stack. You will be supported by experienced technical leaders across application software, integration, AI, and infrastructure. What matters is having the technical judgement to connect these areas, ask the right questions, make thoughtful trade-offs, and create an environment where great engineering teams can succeed.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and grow our US Application Software organisation, creating an inclusive, collaborative environment where engineers and technical leaders can do their best work.
• Own how Wayve’s core AI and autonomous driving technology is applied to customer vehicle programmes, from technical definition through integration, validation, release, and production.
• Guide the development and delivery of new ADAS and autonomous driving capabilities across machine learning, autonomy, vehicle systems, and application software.
• Create a strong technical bridge between Wayve’s core engineering teams and our OEM customers, ensuring customer and vehicle requirements are understood and reflected in engineering priorities.
• Provide technical and architectural leadership across autonomous driving, ML-enabled systems, embedded software, vehicle integration, and deployment.
• Partner closely with AI, autonomy, product, safety, validation, release, and systems engineering teams to solve complex technical challenges and deliver high-quality customer outcomes.
• Turn learning from individual customer programmes into reusable components, engineering practices, and integration approaches that can accelerate future deployments.
• Build trusted relationships with senior engineering stakeholders at our automotive partners and represent Wayve in technical discussions, architecture reviews, and programme planning.
• Develop senior engineers and engineering managers, creating clear ownership while empowering technical leaders throughout the organisation.
• Bring insights from customer deployments back into Wayve’s core technology and product teams, helping shape the evolution of our architecture and global deployment strategy.

About you

We’re looking for an engineering leader who is excited by the challenge of bringing AI-powered autonomous driving technology into the real world.

You may have built your career within autonomous driving, ADAS, automotive AI, an OEM, or another environment where complex software and ML-enabled systems meet the physical world. We recognise that great candidates can come from different backgrounds, and we don’t expect one person to have worked on every part of the technology stack.

Essential:

• Significant engineering and leadership experience within autonomous driving, ADAS, automotive AI, or related vehicle technologies.
• Strong understanding of autonomous driving and machine learning, including how ML-enabled driving capabilities are developed, integrated, validated, and deployed in vehicles.
• Experience taking a new driving feature, behaviour, or capability from development towards production, with meaningful technical ownership across the autonomy/ML and vehicle integration lifecycle.
• Experience delivering complex software or AI-enabled systems within production automotive programmes, with a good understanding of vehicle systems, embedded platforms, and integration constraints.
• Experience building and leading multidisciplinary engineering teams, including developing senior engineers, technical leaders, and/or engineering managers.
• Strong technical judgement and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across engineering disciplines and build trusted relationships with OEM customers and technical partners.

Desirable:

• Experience developing or deploying end‑to‑end learned driving systems, including model training, adaptation, tuning, or deployment.
• Familiarity with automotive embedded environments such as C++, Linux, QNX, or Adaptive AUTOSAR.
• Familiarity with automotive development, safety, and security frameworks such as ISO 26262, ISO/SAE 21434, UN R155/156, or A‑SPICE.
• Experience working across multiple vehicle platforms or OEM programmes and creating reusable technical approaches that can scale across customers.

This is a full-time role based in Detroit or Sunnyvale, CA (hybrid). 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.
The reasonably estimated salary for this role ranges from $490,000 to $600,000 , plus a competitive equity package. Actual compensation is based on the candidate's skills, qualifications, and experience.

Wayve is committed to creating an inclusive interview experience. If you require any accommodations or adjustments to participate fully in our interview process, please let us know.

We understand that everyone has a unique set of skills and experiences and that not everyone will meet all of the requirements listed above.

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.

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.

For more information visit Careers at Wayve.

To learn more about what drives us, visit Values at Wayve

For US candidates only, please visit E-Verify Notice and Participation and Right to Work