Senior Hardware Engineer, Vay
Plus ESOP virtual stock options
More information about location
Driverless mobility service
Be an early applicant
Driverless mobility service
101-200 employees
Be an early applicant
Plus ESOP virtual stock options
More information about location
101-200 employees
Company mission
To speed up the rollout of driverless mobility services by using its remote human-assisted driving technologies to build trust in its services.
Role
Who you are
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related field
- Several years experience in Mechanical Design, owning mechanical systems end to end, from concept through on-vehicle or system-level validation
- Deep expertise in CAD-based component and assembly design, including production-grade documentation
- Strong fundamentals in mechanical design, materials, and manufacturing processes
- Hands-on experience building, installing, and testing real hardware such as vehicles, robots, or complex machinery
- Experience working with PLM systems, GD&T, and formal release processes
- Demonstrated ownership of Engineering Change Orders, including initiation, tracking, and closure
- Comfortable operating with high autonomy in a fast-paced, cross-functional engineering environment.
- Engineering Change Order (ECO) management experience: initiating, tracking, and closing ECOs
What the job involves
- This is not a traditional CAD desk job. As a Senior Hardware Engineer, you will be a technical owner of mechanical systems that are designed, built, installed, and validated on real vehicles and remote drive station platforms used in live operations
- You will shape next-generation hardware from clean-sheet design through on-vehicle validation, with direct responsibility for turning ideas into robust, production-ready components
- . This role combines deep mechanical design expertise with hands-on execution and real-world impact
- You will also own the Engineering Change Order process for your systems, ensuring that improvements move efficiently from concept to release as the product and fleet scale
- If you’re looking for a role that combines deep design expertise with hands-on engineering impact, this is it
- Act as the technical owner of mechanical components: concept freeze through vehicle-level validation and release.
- Lead hardware change initiatives end-to-end, from change request initiation through ECO closure and release
- Make design trade-offs independently while aligning stakeholders across engineering, testing, and operations
- Design new mechanical parts and assemblies in CAD, with a strong focus on manufacturability, durability, and integration into complex systems
- Coordinate or fabricate first prototypes, perform hands-on vehicle-level installation, and execute functional and environmental testing.
- Partner with test and validation teams to define, execute, and iterate on validation plans based on real-world results
- Work closely with procurement and supply chain to create and manage BOMs, source components, and support suppliers during early builds and iteration phases
- Drive and participate in rigorous design reviews, ensuring technical excellence and cross-functional alignment
- Release hardware configurations for engineering and commercial use with accurate documentation, GD&T, and PLM data
Our take
Driverless cars are often considered as the future of transport, but the AI-driven innovation is not yet powerful and safe enough to be made publically available. Furthermore, it is anticipated that many people would not trust AI-driven driverless cars regardless of their state of development, preferring to know that a human is behind the wheel.
Vay develops autonomous driving hardware powered by "teledriving", a system in which cars are driven remotely by humans. The German company will begin by providing orderable cars that can be driven manually by the customer but parked remotely by Vay staff, with future use cases including full remote rides, ride-sharing, last-mile delivery, and public transport.
Whilst other companies such as Mobileye have made plans to provide driverless cars to German cities, Vay is standing out with its unique focus on the trust of teledriving. Furthermore, the initial focus on autonomous parking will greatly speed up rollout and give the company a competitive edge. 2024 funding is being used to expand its development team and grow its European market.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-1% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Nov 2025
$60m
LATE VC
Dec 2021
$95m
SERIES B
Total funding: $169.4m
Company benefits
- You will be part of a highly committed, experienced, fun and international team from over 25 countries
- You'll be a part of improving transportation in metropolitan areas around the world - from Europe
- We offer healthy snacks, drinks and coffee in our modern waterfront office in Hamburg
- We have a generous, highly employee-friendly stock option plan and pay above industry standards
- We organize thoughtful & fun team events throughout the year
- We support highly flexible working policies where possible as well as support for your relocation – it doesn’t matter where you currently live
- We contribute to a FitX or UrbanSportsClub membership, plus free and all-day use of our Gravity Gym in the Berlin office
- We contribute to your monthly public transport ticket in Berlin so that it costs you <50% of the regular price
Company HQ
Tempelhof, Berlin, Germany
Leadership
Thomas von der Ohe
(CEO & Co-Founder)Experience as Senior Technical Program Manager for Amazon Lab126 between 2014 and 2016. Technical Program Manager for Zoox Inc. between 2016 and 2018. Co-founded Vay as CEO in 2018.
Fabrizio Ugo Scelsi
(CTO & Co-Founder)Founded autonomous driving company Mov.ING in 2014, acting as CTO until 2017.
Bogdan Djukic
(VP of Engineering & Co-Founder)Experience as a Senior Software Engineer for Microsoft between 2013 and 2017.
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