Senior / Staff Systems Engineer, AI Validation

Wayve; Sunnyvale (CA); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation support

Visa sponsorship where applicable

Hybrid working

Vehicle workshops and labs access

Learning and development support

Health, family, retirement, wellbeing

Job summary

Wayve is seeking a senior validator for autonomous driving capabilities in Sunnyvale. You will own validation from strategy through execution, building metrics, automated tests, and evaluation tooling to ensure safe real-world and simulated driving performance.

You will collaborate with data, simulation and engineering teams, define acceptance criteria, and report findings to stakeholders to influence releases and product decisions.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with behaviour validation in autonomous driving or related domain.
• Proficiency in Python for metrics, tests, or evaluation tooling.
• Ability to turn ambiguous requirements into automated tests.
• Strong communication of findings to multiple stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Own validation for driving-behaviour competencies from strategy through execution.
• Develop metrics and automated tests linking product requirements to driving performance.
• Run simulation-based evaluations, analyse results, and investigate failures.
• Define coverage, test suites, and acceptance criteria with Product, Safety, and AV Engineering.
• Report clear findings to Release and Autonomy Engineering stakeholders.
• Collaborate across data, simulation, and evaluation teams to scale automated validation.

Skills

Behaviour validation

Python

Systems thinking

Communication of findings

SQL

AI tooling

Tools

SQL

AI tooling

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 AI Validation

AI Validation is a small, fast-growing team responsible for proving that the Wayve AI Driver behaves safely and effectively. The team owns end-to-end, simulation-led validation across driving competencies such as intersections, crossings, and lane changes.

Your day-to-day

• Own validation for one or more driving-behaviour competencies from strategy through execution.
• Develop metrics and automated tests that connect product requirements to measurable driving performance.
• Run simulation-based evaluations, analyse results, and investigate failure modes.
• Define coverage requirements, test suites, and acceptance criteria with Product, Safety, and AV Engineering.
• Report clear findings to Release and Autonomy Engineering stakeholders.
• Work across data, simulation, and evaluation teams to remove dependencies and scale automated validation.

What you’ll be working on

• General-purpose metrics for on-road and simulated driving behaviour.
• Automated test frameworks for end-to-end learned driving systems.
• Scenario coverage for complex behaviour areas, including unprotected intersections, crosswalks, and lane changes.
• Validation strategies that work across multiple autonomy products.
• Evidence that directly influences release decisions and helps bring the Wayve AI Driver to customers globally.

You should apply if

• You have hands-on experience with behaviour validation in autonomous driving, robotics, or a related product domain.
• You have worked beyond basic lane-keeping or conventional ADAS and understand L2+, L3, or L4 validation challenges.
• You can write Python professionally and have implemented metrics, tests, or evaluation tooling yourself.
• You are a systems thinker who enjoys turning ambiguous requirements into practical, automated tests.
• You can adapt to evolving simulation paradigms and communicate findings clearly.
• Experience with SQL, large datasets, AI tooling, or agentic workflows is helpful.

Not ticking every box? That’s totally okay!

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.

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.

How we work — Locations & Flexible Working

This role is based in Sunnyvale, California. We operate a hybrid working model that combines in-person collaboration with focused time working remotely.

The Interview Process

• Initial call / recruiter screen (25 min)
• Competency interviews (HM Screen; 45 min)
• Deep-dive interviews covering systems and domain expertise (3-4 hours)
• Final interview focused on mission and values alignment (60 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 access to vehicle 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.

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.