Senior Forensics Engineer

Wayve; Sunnyvale (CA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Wayve is seeking a seasoned investigator for its Forensics team to drive root-cause analysis across the AV stack. You’ll work with hardware, software, data, and AI models to identify systemic issues and validate fixes, shaping investigative processes and tooling as the fleet scales.

You’ll design experiments, reproduce issues with simulations and on-road data, and communicate insights to technical and non-technical stakeholders while supporting new vehicle platform bring-ups.

Qualifications

• Three+ years of experience working with complex systems in robotics, autonomous vehicles, or similar engineering environments.
• Curious, pragmatic systems thinker who investigates ambiguous problems and follows evidence to root cause.
• Experience designing real-world experiments to prove or disprove hypotheses.
• Ability to write Python scripts for data analysis and use AI tools to improve effectiveness.
• Ability to communicate technical findings clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Collaborative with cross-team stakeholders and able to influence technical decisions.

Responsibilities

• Lead investigations from triage escalations, model alerts, on-road incidents, and ad-hoc requests to root cause.
• Analyse on-road data, logs, and simulations to reproduce issues and identify fleet-wide patterns.
• Build queries, plots, dashboards, and automated workflows to accelerate investigations.
• Confirm root causes, validate fixes, and stay engaged through resolution with system owners.
• Communicate findings via concise reports, visuals, and presentations for diverse audiences.
• Support release testing and bring-up of new vehicle platforms as needed.

Skills

Python

Data analysis

Communication

Cross-functional collaboration

Safety culture

ML models experience

Robotics/AV domain knowledge

Tools

SQL

Visualization (dashboards)

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 Forensics Team

Wayve’s Forensics team sits within the Model Integration and Release group and works at the heart of autonomous-driving performance improvement. We investigate systemic issues across the full end-to-end AV stack—from hardware and software to AI models—and turn our findings into improvements in vehicle safety and performance.

You’ll collaborate across the business with hardware and software engineers, roboticists, model developers, platform teams, operations, and safety specialists. As part of a newly re-formed team, you’ll also help shape our investigative processes, playbooks, and tooling as Wayve’s technology and global fleet continue to grow.

Your day-to-day

• Lead investigations arising from triage escalations, model alerts, on-road incidents, and ad-hoc requests, driving each problem through to its root cause.
• Analyse on-road data, logs, and offline simulations to reproduce issues, identify fleet-wide patterns, and test hypotheses.
• Build queries, plots, dashboards, and automated workflows that accelerate investigations and monitor known issues.
• Work with the teams that own each system to confirm root causes, validate fixes, and stay engaged through resolution.
• Communicate findings clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders through concise written reports, visualisations, and presentations.
• Support release testing and the bring-up of new vehicle platforms when investigative or systems-engineering input is needed.

What You’ll Be Working On

• Investigating complex issues across a rapidly growing global vehicle fleet and seeing your findings directly improve AV safety and performance.
• Identifying systemic problems spanning the robot, software, and AI models across Wayve’s complete autonomous-driving stack.
• Using simulation and offline tools to reproduce and debug issues while minimising the need for fleet resources.
• Investigating on-road incidents to establish what happened and why, feeding lessons back into engineering teams and Wayve’s wider safety culture.
• Supporting the introduction of new vehicle platforms developed with leading OEMs.
• Building the processes, playbooks, training, and automation that will define how this growing team operates.

You should apply if

• You have at least three years of experience working with complex systems in robotics, autonomous vehicles, or a comparable engineering environment.
• You’re a curious, pragmatic systems thinker who enjoys getting hands-on with ambiguous technical problems and following the evidence to a root cause.
• You can investigate across a broad technical stack spanning hardware, software, data, and models.
• You have experience designing real-world experiments to prove or disprove hypotheses.
• You’re confident using Python for data analysis and can write scripts for a range of analytical use cases, using AI tools where appropriate to work more effectively.
• You communicate complex technical findings clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• You collaborate effectively across teams and have used your findings to influence technical decisions or wider organisational direction.
• You bring a safety-conscious mindset and are comfortable identifying, escalating, and investigating issues with potential safety implications.
• Experience with machine-learning models, safety-critical systems, autonomous vehicles, robotics, automotive engineering, or fast-moving technology companies would be particularly valuable, but it isn’t essential.

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: 30 mins with Talent Partner.
• Competency Interview: 30 mins with Hiring Manager - Background and Systems Interview.
• Deep-dive technical interviews: Data Investigation (60mins) / Root Cause (60 mins)
• Final interview: Mission & Values Alignment (60mins).

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.