Engineering Manager, OS, Robot Software

Wayve; Sunnyvale (CA); Hybrid; USD 276,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working model

Equity/ownership opportunities

Relocation and visa support where/app

Job summary

Wayve is seeking an Engineering Manager for the OS team, based in Sunnyvale, California. You will lead a high-performing group responsible for the operating-system foundations of Wayve’s onboard software stack and partner with Vehicle Software, model development, hardware and OEM teams.

You will coach engineers, drive hiring, define the team direction, and guide decisions on architecture, testing and deployment.

Qualifications

• Strong track record of leading, growing, engaging and retaining a tech team.
• Experience hiring, coaching and managing performance; career development.
• Owned team roadmap and delivered through others with accountability for quality.
• Hands-on experience architecting embedded software shipped in physical products.
• Understanding of high-performance, low-latency embedded software (C/C++).
• Solid knowledge of Linux kernel fundamentals, device trees, BSPs and OTA deployment.
• Understanding of QNX fundamentals and testing approaches.
• Experience developing peripheral drivers across PCIe and other interfaces.
• Ability to set direction and deliver through influence across multiple teams.
• Experience managing direct reports across time zones and with external partners.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the OS team, coach engineers, and drive hiring and onboarding.
• Establish direction, align roadmap with resources, guide technical decisions across design, testing and deployment.
• Own escalation point to unblock delivery and mitigate risks and dependencies.
• Drive execution through prioritized programs with accountability for delivery and reliability.
• Set technical direction and own the technology-roadmap milestones with stakeholders.
• Guide OS foundations across architecture, implementation, testing, deployment and improvement.
• Support new hardware platforms with incremental development and minimal performance impact.
• Strengthen CI, hardware-in-the-loop testing and internal quality gates.
• Collaborate with hardware and OEM teams to scale platforms and bring up boards.
• Improve build and deployment systems for broad capabilities in heterogeneous environments.
• Establish quality metrics and automated release gates for scalable deployments.
• Partner with Vehicle Software, model development, hardware and OEM teams to resolve dependencies.

Skills

People leadership

Engineering management

Embedded software

C/C++

Linux kernel fundamentals

QNX fundamentals

Board bring-up

Hardware-in-the-loop testing

Roadmap ownership

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 Engineering Teams

The OS team builds and maintains the operating-system foundations for Wayve’s onboard software stack. Other vehicle-software components depend on the frameworks, observability capabilities and foundational layers owned by this team.

The team works closely with Vehicle Software, model developers, hardware teams and OEM programes to enable Wayve’s AI Driver across new vehicles, compute platforms and other embodiments.

As Engineering Manager, you’ll lead a single team and be accountable for its delivery, engagement, resourcing, roadmap and performance. People leadership will be your first priority, supported by the technical judgement needed to set direction and own the outcomes of the team’s decisions.

Your day-to-day

You’ll coach and develop engineers, maintain a healthy and high-performing team, and lead hiring and onboarding as the team grows.

You’ll establish the team’s direction, identify the work with the greatest business impact and align the roadmap with available resources. In partnership with technical leads and stakeholders, you’ll guide technical decisions across system design, implementation, testing, deployment, monitoring and continuous improvement.

You’ll also serve as the team’s escalation point, proactively identifying risks, dependencies and opportunities to unblock delivery.

What you’ll be working on

• Leading and developing the team: Run effective one-to-ones, set clear expectations, provide regular high-quality feedback, manage performance and support career growth against Wayve’s career framework


• Hiring and building the team: Own hiring and onboarding, ensure the right people are in the right roles, and shape the team’s culture and ways of working


• Driving execution: Staff committed programmes, prioritise effectively and hold the team accountable for delivery, quality and operational reliability


• Setting technical direction: Establish a clear, holistic technical direction and ownership of technology-roadmap milestones in partnership with technical leads and stakeholders


• Owning Wayve’s OS foundations: Guide the operating-system roadmap and the team’s work across architecture, implementation, testing, deployment, monitoring and continuous improvement


• Enabling new hardware platforms: Support new platforms through incremental development while minimising performance degradation


• Strengthening quality and iteration: Implement and maintain strong continuous integration, hardware-in-the-loop testing and internal quality gates


• Bringing up new boards: Collaborate with hardware partners on board bring-up and scale new platforms with quality


• Improving build and deployment systems: Optimise build, packaging and deployment systems for broad capabilities and highly heterogeneous environments


• Scaling safely: Establish quality metrics and automated testing and release gates that support deployments ranging from one to 10,000 units


• Collaborating across Wayve: Partner with Vehicle Software, model development, hardware and OEM programe teams to deliver through influence and resolve cross-functional dependencies

You should apply if

• You have a strong track record of leading, growing, engaging and retaining a high-performing software or systems team


• You have experience hiring, coaching, providing feedback, managing performance and supporting engineers’ career development


• You have owned a team roadmap and delivered through others, including planning, prioritisation, resourcing and accountability for quality and operational reliability


• You have hands‑on experience architecting and delivering embedded software shipped in a physical product to real customers


• You understand high‑performance, low‑latency embedded software, preferably developed in C or C++, and can earn the trust of senior engineers without needing to be the team’s top individual contributor


• You have a solid understanding of Linux kernel fundamentals, device trees, board support packages, embedded build and packaging systems, software updates and over‑the‑air deployment


• You understand QNX fundamentals, security and robust software‑in‑the‑loop and hardware‑in‑the‑loop testing


• You have broad experience developing reliable, high‑performance peripheral drivers across low- and high-speed devices, including technologies such as PCIe


• You can set direction and deliver through influence across multiple stakeholder teams


• You have experience managing direct reports across different time zones and leading projects involving external partners or vendors

Experience with software and hardware architectures that implement high‑reliability fault tolerance would be valuable.

The following experience would also be useful but is not required:

• NVIDIA DriveOS


• Microkernel or real‑time operating systems such as QNX


• NVIDIA Jetson or Drive platforms


• Qualcomm, AMD or Renesas compute platforms

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+ 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 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 and more intelligent future of mobility.

How we work—location and flexible working

This is a full‑time, hybrid role based in Sunnyvale, California.

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 offices and workshops with focused time working remotely. This gives our teams the connection and energy of working together alongside the flexibility to do their best work.

The reasonably estimated base salary range for this role is $276,100 to $300,400, plus a competitive equity package. Actual compensation will be based on the candidate’s skills, qualifications and experience.

The interview process

Our Process Is Clear And Respectful Of Your Time

• Initial recruiter conversation


• Competency interviews — Leadership & Management and OS Domain interviews; approximately two hours in total


• Deep‑dive interviews — Hiring Manager, Software Systems Design and Code Review interviews; approximately three hours in total


• Final interview — mission and values alignment; approximately one hour

We’ll explain each format in advance and work around your availability.

What’s in it for you?

Benefits vary by location.

• 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 opportunities to work hands‑on in vehicle workshops and labs


• Learning and development budgets, with support for training, conferences and professional growth


• Comprehensive benefits, including health insurance, dental coverage, enhanced maternity and paternity leave, retirement support 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.