Vice President, AI Data

Wayve; Sunnyvale (CA); Hybrid; USD 260,000 - 380,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Relocation assistance

Visa sponsorship

Hybrid working

Job summary

Wayve in Sunnyvale is seeking a VP of Data to lead our data strategy for autonomous driving AI. You will own data governance, discovery, enrichment and the learning loop that powers model performance, working with AI, engineering, science and product leaders.

You’ll build a global data organisation, set priorities, measure ROI of data investments and scale data capability across OEMs and partners, while balancing quality and speed.

Qualifications

• This is a senior leadership role overseeing data strategy and governance.
• Experience shaping data platforms for large-scale ML systems.
• Proven ability to align data capabilities with product and business goals.

Responsibilities

• Own Wayve's data strategy across the AI learning cycle and model performance.
• - Build and lead a global, multidisciplinary Data organisation.
• - Oversee data acquisition, discovery, curation, and enrichment at scale.
• - Align data investments with measurable impact on product and revenue.

Skills

Data strategy

Leadership

AI/ML data

Cross-functional leadership

Data discovery

Tools

Semantic search

Embeddings

Active learning

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 Teams

At Wayve, we are building AI that learns to drive from experience.

We do not hand-code cars to drive. Our models learn from data gathered across the real world, making our ability to identify, understand and learn from the right data fundamental to everything we build.

Our Data organisation sits at the heart of this learning loop. It works across AI, Science, Validation, Product, Compute and our commercial programmes to determine what data Wayve needs, how we acquire and understand it, and how we turn it into measurable improvements in our AI Driver.

The scale and shape of the problem is unique. Our data comes from our own vehicles, OEM programmes, partners and external sources, spanning different vehicles, sensors, markets and driving environments. Within that corpus, the most valuable examples are often the hardest to find: rare behaviours, unusual interactions, safety-critical events and the long tail of real-world driving.

We are looking for a VP of Data to lead this organisation and own the data strategy behind Wayve’s autonomous driving technology.

Your day-to-day

As VP of Data, you will have end-to-end ownership of how Wayve uses data to improve our AI.

You will set the strategy across the complete AI learning cycle, determining what data we need and how it should drive model performance, from foundation model training through specialised driving capabilities and production programmes.

You will lead a multidisciplinary Data organisation and work closely with senior leaders across Engineering, AI, Science, Validation, Product, Compute, Finance and Commercial teams.

This is not simply about building systems that process data. You will be responsible for deciding what data matters and why, making significant technical and investment decisions, and building the strategy, organisation and learning loop that enables Wayve to learn from the real world faster.

What You’ll Be Working On

• Owning Wayve’s data strategy: Set the strategy across the complete AI learning cycle and determine where data can have the greatest impact on model capability and performance.
• Building the data flywheel: Own the learning loop from real-world signals and model behaviour through data discovery, curation and enrichment into training, evaluation, deployment and measurement.
• Finding the data that matters: Develop intelligent approaches to discovering rare, surprising and safety-critical scenarios within extremely large datasets, using techniques such as embeddings, semantic search, learned representations and model-driven data selection.
• Leading data acquisition and enrichment: Define how Wayve collects, buys, generates and enriches data across our own fleet, OEM programmes, partners and external sources, balancing coverage, quality, speed and economics.
• Connecting data investment to model performance: Establish how we measure the value of data and make rigorous trade-offs across quality, accuracy, speed, cost and scale, ensuring investment is focused where it creates the greatest impact.
• Scaling our data strategy globally: Build an approach that supports multiple OEMs, vehicle platforms, sensor configurations, geographies and regulatory environments while maintaining a scalable global architecture.
• Building and leading the organisation: Develop a high-performing, multidisciplinary Data organisation capable of operating across Wayve’s research, engineering and commercial programmes.

You Should Apply If

• You are a senior engineering or technical leader with significant experience building and leading high-performing technical organisations.
• You have operated at the intersection of AI, data and large-scale model development, with data capabilities that directly influence model training, evaluation and performance.
• You have deep technical expertise in areas such as computer vision, video, multimodal AI, perception or related large-scale ML problems.
• You have strong intuition for what makes data valuable and experience with data discovery, selection, curation and enrichment at scale.
• You can move comfortably between strategy and technical detail, from defining an organisation-wide data strategy to going deep on a dataset, model behaviour or learning loop.
• You have strong technical and commercial judgement and have made meaningful trade-offs across quality, speed, cost, scale and build-versus-partner decisions.
• You are comfortable setting direction in ambiguity and influencing senior technical and business stakeholders across organisational boundaries.

Experience in autonomous driving, robotics or embodied AI would be particularly valuable, as would experience with large-scale video or multimodal foundation model training, semantic search, embeddings, active learning, auto-labelling, or large-scale real-world data acquisition.

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 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.

This role can be based in either our London or Sunnyvale office.

What’s In It For You

• 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 opportunity to work closely with our vehicles, workshops and labs
• Learning and development support, including training, conferences and opportunities for continued growth
• Comprehensive location-dependent benefits including health insurance, dental, enhanced maternity and paternity leave, retirement or pension support, access to therapists, wellbeing partnerships, team socials and more

Wayve is committed to creating an inclusive interview experience. If you require any accommodations or adjustments to participate fully in our interview process, please let us know.

Wayve is committed to creating a diverse, fair and respectful culture that is inclusive of everyone based on their unique skills and perspectives, 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, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

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, 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.

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.