Staff Robotics Engineer, 3D Sensing

Wayve; Sunnyvale (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Market salaries

Equity

Relocation support

Hybrid working

Learning budget

Health insurance

Dental plan

Maternity/paternity leave

Pension

Therapists access

Wellbeing programs

Team socials

Job summary

Wayve in Sunnyvale, CA is seeking a senior robotics engineer to lead the development of LiDAR and cross-sensor 3D sensing systems for perception and ground-truth generation. You will own calibration, registration and timing challenges, and guide the architecture and roadmap for 3D sensing across vehicles.

You'll work closely with research and engineering teams, solve real sensor issues such as synchronization and motion effects, and mentor other engineers while delivering production-ready

Qualifications

• Significant experience developing robotics or autonomous-driving systems involving LiDAR, cameras and 3D sensor data.
• Strong experience with target-based or targetless sensor calibration and registration, including LiDAR-to-camera alignment.
• Strong understanding of 3D geometry, state estimation and optimisation techniques, including nonlinear least-squares methods or factor graphs.
• Experience accounting for sensor timing and motion effects, such as time synchronisation, LiDAR sweep distortion, rolling-shutter cameras and motion compensation.
• Strong software-engineering skills in C++ and/or Python, with experience taking robotics algorithms from prototype through evaluation and production deployment.
• Experience defining evaluation methodologies, datasets and metrics for assessing calibration, registration and 3D sensing quality across real-world conditions.
• Demonstrated technical leadership, including setting technical direction, solving ambiguous cross-functional problems and mentoring other engineers.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the technical architecture and roadmap for Wayve’s LiDAR and cross-sensor 3D sensing capabilities, aligned with product and vehicle-programme requirements.
• Lead the development of target-based and targetless LiDAR calibration and registration methods, including LiDAR-to-camera alignment using geometric and learned approaches.
• Develop robust temporal alignment and motion compensation methods using techniques such as LiDAR odometry, nonlinear least-squares optimisation and factor graphs.
• Establish evaluation methodologies and productionise reliable, scalable 3D sensing systems that operate across diverse vehicles, environments and sensor configurations.
• Work with engineering and research teams to deliver end-to-end 3D sensing capabilities, while providing technical leadership and mentorship to other engineers.

Skills

Robotics systems

Autonomous driving

Sensor calibration

LiDAR-to-camera alignment

3D geometry

State estimation

Optimization

Time synchronization

Motion compensation

C++/Python

Production deployment

Evaluation methodologies

Technical leadership

Tools

GTSAM

Ceres Solver

g2o

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 Robotics Team

The Robotics team is responsible for bridging the gap from our model to our vehicle platforms, in order to let the model focus on making driving decisions. We aim to provide high quality data to the model for making such decisions, whilst abstracting away platform-specific aspects. We combine specialisms across the robotics domain, blending strong theoretical foundations with solid engineering practice to span the spectrum from research to production.

Your day-to-day

• Define and evolve the technical architecture and roadmap for Wayve’s LiDAR and cross-sensor 3D sensing capabilities, aligned with product and vehicle-programme requirements.
• Lead the development of target-based and targetless LiDAR calibration and registration methods, including LiDAR-to-camera alignment using geometric and learned approaches.
• Develop robust temporal alignment and motion compensation methods using techniques such as LiDAR odometry, nonlinear least-squares optimisation and factor graphs.
• Establish evaluation methodologies and productionise reliable, scalable 3D sensing systems that operate across diverse vehicles, environments and sensor configurations.
• Work with engineering and research teams to deliver end-to-end 3D sensing capabilities, while providing technical leadership and mentorship to other engineers.

What you’ll be working on:

Leading the technical development of our LiDAR and cross-sensor 3D sensing capabilities. You will own the systems used to calibrate, synchronise and align LiDARs with cameras and other vehicle sensors, enabling accurate and reliable 3D data for perception, reconstruction and ground-truth generation.

This is a senior individual-contributor role with responsibility for shaping the architecture and technical roadmap for 3D sensing, while remaining deeply involved in algorithm development, implementation, evaluation and deployment. You will solve challenging problems arising from real sensor systems—including imperfect time synchronisation, rolling-shutter cameras and LiDAR sweep patterns—and develop robust methods that operate across diverse vehicles, environments and operating conditions. You will collaborate broadly across Wayve and provide technical leadership and mentorship across the 3D sensing stack.

You should apply if you have:

Essential

• Significant experience developing robotics or autonomous-driving systems involving LiDAR, cameras and 3D sensor data.
• Strong experience with target-based or targetless sensor calibration and registration, including LiDAR-to-camera alignment.
• Strong understanding of 3D geometry, state estimation and optimisation techniques, including nonlinear least-squares methods or factor graphs.
• Experience accounting for sensor timing and motion effects, such as time synchronisation, LiDAR sweep distortion, rolling-shutter cameras and motion compensation.
• Strong software-engineering skills in C++ and/or Python, with experience taking robotics algorithms from prototype through evaluation and production deployment.
• Experience defining evaluation methodologies, datasets and metrics for assessing calibration, registration and 3D sensing quality across real-world conditions.
• Demonstrated technical leadership, including setting technical direction, solving ambiguous cross-functional problems and mentoring other engineers.

Desirable

• Experience with LiDAR odometry, SLAM or mapping systems, including LiDAR motion compensation and deskewing.
• Experience with metric-depth foundation models and their application to calibration, registration or 3D reconstruction.
• Familiarity with learned feature correspondences, cross-modal registration, Gaussian splatting or other emerging 3D representations.
• Experience handling dynamic scenes using object detection, motion segmentation or tracking methods.
• Practical experience with optimisation libraries such as GTSAM, Ceres Solver or g2o.

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:

Our process is clear and respectful of your time:

• Initial call / recruiter screen: general background, current situation, interests and Wayve company information & hiring context.
• Competency Interviews: programming and code review.
• Deep-dive technical interviews: domain knowledge & system design.
• Final interview: mission & values alignment.

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.

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.