Director of Application Software, Wayve
More information about location
2-5 days a week in office
Autonomous mobility driven by AI
Be an early applicant
Autonomous mobility driven by AI
201-500 employees
Be an early applicant
More information about location
2-5 days a week in office
201-500 employees
Company mission
To reimagine autonomous mobility through embodied intelligence.
Role
Who you are
- 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 5 years in a leadership role in automotive or embedded systems domains
- Deep expertise in C++, Python, and system-level programming for Linux, QNX, and Adaptive AUTOSAR environments
- Proven experience integrating AI workloads into automotive software stacks, ideally across multiple hardware platforms (e.g., NVIDIA Orin, Qualcomm Ride, etc.)
- Strong understanding of virtualization, hypervisors, bootloaders, and automotive middleware
- Familiarity with ISO 26262, ASIL decomposition strategies, and functional safety considerations for application-layer software
- Experience building and leading distributed, high-performance engineering teams
Desirable
- Experience integrating AI-driven or end-to-end neural network software into embedded real-time environments
- Exposure to OTA strategies, cybersecurity standards (e.g., ISO/SAE 21434), and data logging interfaces
- Hands-on knowledge of BSPs, RTOS tuning, and cross-compilation toolchains
- Familiarity with automotive-grade CI/CD pipelines and deployment frameworks
What the job involves
- We are seeking a visionary and technically strong Director of Application Software to lead the architecture, development, and delivery of the application-layer software libraries that enable our product to integrate into diverse customer platforms and vehicle architectures
- This leader will drive the definition and implementation of robust and portable software integration frameworks compatible with Linux-based hypervisors, QNX, Adaptive AUTOSAR, and other industry-relevant automotive OS and middleware stacks
- This role requires close collaboration with platform engineering, system integration, product, and customer engineering teams to ensure consistent and reliable product behaviour across heterogeneous deployment environments
- Own the application-layer software architecture and lead the development of reusable libraries and interfaces that enable seamless integration of our embodied AI stack into OEM environments
- Define and maintain robust abstraction layers and platform adaptation strategies for a variety of target systems (e.g., NVIDIA Drive, Qualcomm Ride, Renesas, etc.)
- Lead cross-functional efforts to ensure compatibility with Linux (with hypervisors), QNX, and Adaptive AUTOSAR operating environments
- Collaborate with system architecture and product teams to define integration requirements aligned with safety, performance, and scalability objectives
- Ensure software interfaces comply with industry standards and customer-specific integration patterns
- Hire, lead, and mentor a high-performance application software team focused on cross-platform delivery and deployment tooling
- Drive quality and robustness by incorporating modern software engineering practices (e.g., CI/CD, containerization, secure boot support, OTA readiness)
- Work directly with OEM and Tier 1 partners during evaluation, integration, and validation of the product in customer environments
- Serve as the technical point of contact for internal and external stakeholders on all matters related to application software architecture and integration
Our take
Wayve is developing artificial intelligence (AI) that teaches cars to drive autonomously using reinforcement learning, simulation, and computer vision. Wayve’s core premise is that the big breakthrough in self-driving cars will come from better AI brains rather than more sensors or “hand-coded” rules which it believes are highly restrictive and not at all scalable.
The company said that it trains its autonomous driving system using simulated environments and then transfers that knowledge into the real world, where it emulates how humans adapt to conditions in real time. It ultimately relies on end-to-end deep learning AI rather than hard-engineered AI. This is one of the world's hardest problems to solve, but Wayve has made an exciting start and is taking a very different approach to competitors like Uber and Waymo, who are relying more on sensors.
Following a few years of innovative breakthroughs, Wayve now has backing from high-profile investors such as Microsoft and angels, including Uber's chief scientist Zoubin Ghahramani and Pieter Abbeel, a UC Berkeley robotics professor and pioneer of deep reinforcement learning. The company's strategic partnerships with outfits like Asda and Ocado to test-run autonomous deliveries, as well as publicity through the Minister is a show of confidence in the future of Wayve's solution to autonomous driving.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
May 2024
$1.1bn
SERIES C
Jan 2022
$200m
SERIES B
Total funding: $1.3bn
Company benefits
- Learning budget
- In-house chef
- Flexible Working
- Private health insurance and therapy
- Workplace nursery scheme
- Onsite bar
- Large social budgets
- Enhanced parental leave
Company HQ
London, UK
Leadership
Alex Kendall
(CEO)Has a PhD from Cambridge in Computer Vision & Robotics. Previously Research Engineer at Skydio and Advisor to Scape Technologies
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