Senior / Staff Sensing Systems Engineer

Wayve; Sunnyvale (CA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

Equity

Relocation assistance

Vehicle access to labs and workshops

Learning & development benefits

Job summary

Wayve in Sunnyvale is seeking a Sensing Systems Engineer to define sensing architectures for autonomous vehicle platforms and translate driving needs into sensor requirements and validation gates.

You will collaborate across hardware, ML, validation and product teams to design experiments, analyse data, and optimise sensor performance, calibration, and synchronization for real-world driving.

Qualifications

• Deep technical knowledge of at least one sensing modality used in robotics or autonomous vehicles.
• Strong systems-engineering fundamentals, including requirements definition, verification, and validation.
• Experience designing experiments and using data analysis to drive decisions.
• Understanding how sensing limitations propagate through ML or robotic systems.

Responsibilities

• Define and refine sensing-system requirements, metrics, and acceptance criteria for vehicle platforms.
• Translate product behaviours into measurable sensor needs and validation scenarios.
• Design experiments with hardware, ML, and validation teams and analyse the resulting data.
• Evaluate how sensor characteristics, placement, calibration, synchronization, and defects affect model inputs and driving behaviour.
• Make and document system-level trade-offs across performance, cost, compute, packaging, reliability, and schedule.
• Drive cross-functional technical decisions where requirements are incomplete or conflicting.

Skills

Sensing systems knowledge

Systems engineering fundamentals

Experiment design & data analysis

Cross-functional collaboration

Sensor calibration/synchronization

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

Wayve's engineering teams are building the AI, robotics, simulation, data, and systems foundations needed to deploy a generalisable AI Driver safely and at scale.

About Robotics Sensing

This role sits at the intersection of Robotics, Hardware, Vehicle Software, Machine Learning, Validation, and Product. As the first dedicated Sensing Systems Engineer in the team, you will help define how Wayve translates driving and model needs into sensing requirements and evidence across vehicle platforms.

Your day-to-day

• Define and refine sensing-system requirements, metrics, and acceptance criteria for new and existing vehicle platforms.
• Translate product behaviours and use cases into measurable sensor needs and challenging validation scenarios.
• Design experiments with hardware, ML, and validation teams and analyse the resulting data.
• Evaluate how sensor characteristics, placement, calibration, synchronization, and defects affect model inputs and driving behaviour.
• Make and document system-level trade-offs across performance, cost, compute, packaging, reliability, and schedule.
• Drive cross-functional technical decisions where requirements are incomplete or conflicting.

What you'll be working on

• Cameras, lidar, radar, localization, calibration, synchronization, and sensor-data quality.
• Sensing architectures for new vehicle platforms, from sensor selection and placement through interfaces and validation.
• Metrics and experiments that isolate sensor impact on end-to-end driving performance.
• Acceptance criteria and validation gates for on-road deployment.
• Cost and performance trade-offs for OEM and customer sensing configurations.

You should apply if

• You have deep technical knowledge of at least one sensing modality used in robotics or autonomous vehicles.
• You bring strong systems-engineering fundamentals, including requirements definition, verification, and validation.
• You have designed experiments and used data analysis to make technical decisions.
• You understand how sensing limitations and failure modes propagate through a wider robotic or ML system.
• You work effectively across hardware, software, ML, validation, and product teams.
• Broad familiarity with calibration, synchronization, sensor fusion, perception, or automotive integration is beneficial; deep ML implementation experience is not required.

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.

Our ambition is to make autonomy universal. Wayve's mapless and hardware-agnostic AI platform integrates with global OEM partners, enabling continuous software evolution from L2+ through to L4.

How we work Locations & Flexible Working

This role is based in Sunnyvale. We operate a hybrid working model that combines in-person collaboration in our offices, workshops, and vehicle environments with focused time working remotely.

Interview Process

• Recruiter Screen (25 min)
• Initial technical screen covering experience, systems thinking, and cross-functional leadership (45 min)
• Deep Dives (Sensor Fundamentals, ML Sensor Interface, Architecture & Systems Engineering, Technical Leadership; 3-4 hours)
• Final covering values and mission alignment (45 min)

We'll always explain the format and work around your availability.

What's in it for you (location dependent)

• Salaries benchmarked against the market annually
• Meaningful equity
• Relocation support and visa sponsorship where applicable
• Hybrid working and hands-on access to vehicles, workshops, and labs
• Learning and development support
• Comprehensive location-dependent health, family, retirement, and wellbeing benefits

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.

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.